


Reasons to Live

by Do_the_Cool_Whip



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bat Family, Batfamily Feels, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Meant To Be, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 11:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Do_the_Cool_Whip/pseuds/Do_the_Cool_Whip
Summary: Bruce Wayne was not at the circus the night the Graysons fell to their deaths. As a result, Dick Grayson is left to fend for himself in the dark streets of Gotham. But still, years later, he manages to give Bruce the family he needs. (Because some things are just meant to be.)





	Reasons to Live

**Author's Note:**

> So, Dirty Little Secret is currently residing in a Corner or Shame because I went back to reread it and there are so many typos. So many typos. I have no idea why no one has called me on it. It's going to stay there until I finish editing all of the previous chapters and make sure they're legible.
> 
> I was originally going to post this fic in its entirety, but because of its size and they giant gap in my schedule right now, I'm just going to post the first half since that's all that's been finished. Hopefully a bit of feedback on what I've already written will motivate me to finish writing the second instead of just letting it sit in my head for all of eternity.
> 
> So, here you go everyone, a distraction to tide you over until I get all of my shit together. Enjoy!

Dick is still mourning the loss of his parents, the loss of his family, the loss of his home when he meets him. The pain is still fresh, almost overshadowing his physical hurts, and he isn’t sure how he’s going to go on.      

They threw him into jail.      

He watched as his parents were murdered, watched as the killer casually strolled out of the area, watched as the circus slowly faded from sight out the back window of the car, and no matter how much he tried to tell the man in charge of him that it wasn’t an accident, he wasn’t believed.      

They put him in jail. “It’s just until a spot somewhere else opens up,” the caseworker tells him.

A week passes and there’s nowhere else for him to go. Two weeks pass and the caseworker tells him that he is still looking and “You need to be patient. Asking over and over again isn’t going to open a spot for you faster.”      

So, Dick stops asking. It’s then that he realizes what it means for his parents to be dead. No one cares about him anymore. No one is going to try to help him or make sure he’s happy or hug him when he’s sad. It takes another two weeks of bone deep and soul shattering grief for it to sink in.      

He learns a lot in this time. No one cares about you and you shouldn’t care about anyone else; keep your mouth shut, “I didn’t see anything” is always the correct answer; if you want it, you’ve got to get it yourself.      

At age eight, Dick Grayson was thrown into jail. It only took him a month to break out.      

* * *

Living on the streets was hard. Harder than anything Dick has ever done. Sometimes he thinks about stealing, how much easier it would be if he just takes what he needs to survive, but every time the temptation starts to slip in, he remembers his parents.      

His mother had hated thieves. It wasn’t uncommon for pickpockets to go to the circus and work the crowds. The result was this awful stereotype that circus folks were thieves. It used to infuriate her, disgust her to the point of speechlessness, and Dick can’t stomach the thought of her looking at him with the cold eyes she used to give to thieves.      

He goes hungry a lot. He’s cold often. He struggles to remember what it means to be happy.      

It changes one night. For better or worse things change when he meets that man. Late one night, Dick is huddling by a garbage container, soaked to the bone in the pouring rain, when The Man walks up to him and holds his umbrella above Dick’s head.      

“Omega?” he asks.

Dick stares up at him. “What?”      

“Are you an omega?” he repeats slowly, lips curling into a smirk.      

“Yeah.”      

“Are you still a virgin?”      

“What?”      

“A virgin. Surely, you know what that means.” The Man laughs and Dick feels a blush build up in his cheeks.      

“No,” he snaps, “I don’t know what it means because you just made it up.”      

The Man stops laughing. “You’re serious,” he says after a moment of silence.     

“Go away.”      

The Man crouches, gripping Dick’s hair and forcing him to look at him. “Have you ever been fucked before?”      

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dick whines. It’s in that moment The Man begins to scare him. He tries to pull away, but the grip in his hair tightens and all Dick could do is whimper.      

“You look familiar,” he mutters, “what’s your name, boy?”      

When he doesn’t respond, he’s dragged to his feet by his hair. He sees the car parked in front of the alleyway and panics. “Dick! Dick Grayson!” He pulls at the hand in his hair, as he’s forced into the backseat of the car.      

The Man sits down beside him, transferring his grip from Dick’s hair to his arm. “Buckle up,” he orders. When Dick tries to pull away from him, whimpering and scratching at the fingers locked around his wrist, The Man uses his other hand to reach over and pin him by the throat to the back of his seat. “Now, omega.”      

Dick struggles for a minute or two, baring his teeth at him. It’s futile, though, and when The Man squeezes so hard he can’t breathe, he sobs softly and fumbles with the seatbelt until it clicks into place.      

The Man doesn’t let go, though. He continues to choke Dick until he goes completely limp in his grip. “Good boy.” He murmurs, running his fingers through Dick’s wet hair. After a moment, he turns to face forward. “Drive,” he orders.      

“Yes, sir.” Dick hears the driver say, as the car begins to move.      

It’s silent in the car. There’s nothing but the sound of rain pounding on the car and Dick’s occasional whimper to fill the silence. He’s scared and hurt and he’s alone. It’s awful and Dick hates that he’s in this situation with no one to turn to and no idea of what he should do.      

The car rolls to a stop behind another car and another man stands waiting on the sidewalk. “You are going to get out of this car now,” The Man says. “You are going to go with that man, you are going to do what he says, and you are not going to cause a scene or attract any attention to yourself. Do you understand?”      

Dick nods his head, but his focus is on an alleyway not too far from the car and a couple of buildings with fire escape ladders and he knows that he will be long gone before any of them can stop him.

He unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches for the door when The Man’s hand slams down on the door handle. “Tony Zucco has a hit out on you. Do you know what that means?”      

Dick freezes at the sound of that name. Turning to look at The Man, he answers, “No.”      

“It means he will pay money to whoever manages to prove they killed you.”      

Dick bites back a sob. “He killed my parents.”      

“And he knows you know that. So, unless you want me to kill you now and accept his reward, you’re going to be a good boy and do as you’re told. Do you understand?”      

Dick can’t hold back his sob this time. He wants Zucco in jail where he belongs, but Dick has come to understand that doesn’t mean Zucco will go there. In Gotham, if you want something done, you have to do it yourself and Dick knows he can’t put Zucco away for what he did. Not on his own.      

He isn’t sure what to do and his fear of Zucco continues to creep into his heart until all Dick can do is sit there and cry. Zucco killed his parents and nobody cared, nobody even tried to make him pay for it. He took everything from Dick and it seems he still isn’t satisfied.      

Large fingers brush his tears away, before moving to Dick’s hair and gripping it, forcing Dick to look at The Man.      

“Well, it looks like you understand. Now, are you going to behave or should I just off you now and be done with it?”      

Trembling, Dick nods his head.      

“I want to hear you say it.”      

“Yes,” he whispers.      

“Yes, what?”      

“I’ll behave.” 

* * *

He’s escorted to a fancy hotel room and left alone there. Dick sits on the bed, buries his face in his knees, and cries.      

He’s in there for about ten minutes when The Man comes in. He stands at the foot of the bed and Dick is able to finally make out his features. He’s huge, bigger than Dick’s father and taller than the strongmen, though not as muscular. He has neatly groomed blond hair and a clean shaven face. But, it isn’t his fancy clothes or expensive accessories that catch Dick’s attention: it’s his cold piercing brown eyes that analyzed him.      

“Who are you?” Dick asks, crawling backwards on the bed, leaning away from The Man who looms over him.      

“Your future mate.”      

Dick shakes his head. “No. That’s not true. Why would you say that?”      

The Man chuckles. “Don’t you want someone to take care of you? Give you a place to live, make sure you have something to eat? Take care of all those little things your parents used to do for you?”      

Dick nods his head, back pressed against the headboard of the bed.      

“I can do that for you.”      

Dick wants to believe him, so much it hurt, but he remembers all the things he learned in prison. “What do you want in exchange?”      

The Man smiles. It isn’t a nice smile, like the ones his father used to give to his mother; instead, it reminds him of how the tigers used to look at the horses sometimes. “A trophy,” he says.

“I don’t have one.”      

“No. you are the trophy.”      

“I don’t understand,” Dick whimpers. 

“We will have our first public meeting when you are an appropriate age, we will have the perfect whirlwind romance, we will get married, and you will give me three children. When you grow up, you are going to be the perfect little omega everyone wants. And you will pick me. You’ll be the trophy on my arm that everyone is jealous of. In exchange, I will take care of all your wants and desires.”      

“I want Zucco in jail.”      

The Man laughs. “Well, you’ll just have to earn that from me, won’t you?”      

“So, I have to live with you?”      

“No. Not until you’re old enough for it to be appropriate. Until you’re eighteen, no one will even realize we know each other.”      

Dick nods his head, partly because he doesn’t know what else to do and partly because he is willing to do anything to get Zucco put into jail.       

If this is his only chance for justice then Dick is going to do everything to seize it in his hands.

* * *

Two weeks later, Dick is living alone in an awful rundown one bedroom apartment in Crime Alley. He’s enrolled in an unfamiliar school with people who don’t give a damn about him. Food is delivered to his house once a week and Dick is given a couple of rules to live by. He’s okay with his situation until The Man enters his apartment one afternoon.      

“It’s time to seal the deal,” he says, removing his tie.       

Dick looks at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”      

“I want you,” he explains, “so I’m going to have you. Now, are you going to behave or should we consider this the end of our arrangement?”      

Dick is finally feeling settled and safe in his new life. The thought of giving it all up, to going back to life on the streets terrifies him. But, he still has no idea what the hell The Man is talking about, what he wants from him. “I’ll be good,” he promises.

(That night Dick found out what a virgin is and what it means to be fucked. That night is the real catalyst for everything that happens. It’s why he leaves his apartment at three in the morning, feeling sick to his stomach, and wondering whether or not he should just return to the streets. If he’s being honest with himself, he’ll admit that the reason he leaves is to find a reason to wake up in the morning. Because he really just wishes he was with his parents.)      

* * *

His first reason is Cassandra.      

He finds her that night, that awful night where he lost what little innocence he had left. He’s walking to the park, not too far from his home in Crime Alley, when he sees her. She’s all by herself, standing in the shadows watching something going on by the playground.      

Dick is struck by the image of her standing there. Just this tiny little girl being swallowed by the shadows. And it’s not her he sees, but himself. How he’s felt ever since his parents were murdered. It’s why he goes to her, crouches down beside her.      

She stares at him with wide brown eyes and Dick gently pulls her into a hug. “Are you okay?” he asks, pulling back.      

She doesn’t respond, instead her tiny fingers reach up to trace his lips. She seems fascinated by his mouth, so Dick hums softly and kisses her little palm. There’s a loud clang of metal clashing and when Dick looks to the playground, he can see what held the toddler so captivated before.      

Batman is there, or, at least Dick thinks it’s Batman. People in Crime Alley only ever whisper his name and Dick is never sure whether or not he’s real or not. But, he’s there right in front of Dick, fighting off a whole horde of ninja it looks like. 

It would be easy. To just stay here and wait for Batman to win. To tell him that Tony Zucco murdered his parents and beg him to help. To put Zucco away in a jail cell where he belongs.       

But, that’s not how Gotham works. And Dick knows that now, understands it in a way he hadn't before. Dick doesn’t know what Batman would ask for in exchange and after what he gave up earlier for a place to live, he's not sure if he's willing to give up anything else. He's not even sure he has anything else to give.      

It’s not safe here. He should leave and get himself to safety because no one else is going try to keep him safe. By that logic, the toddler needs to escape on her own. Dick hesitates.      

He looks down at the small girl beside him and decides he's not going to let Gotham win this time. He refuses to leave her to her fate.      

He picks her up and swings her onto his hip. He smiles at her, one hand brushing her dark locks aside, and presses a kiss to her forehead. “I'll take care of you,” he promises her.      

He squeezes her tightly and when she tentatively squeezes back, carefully and cautiously resting her head on his shoulder, he takes a second to bask in this moment. The best moment he's had since his parents died. This moment where he can pretend he has someone who cares about him, a family that loves him and wants him. When the moment ends, he manoeuvres her to his back and begins his trek home. He knows that because of the rules of Gotham, if asked, no one will admit to seeing him, but that isn't an excuse to be sloppy. He sticks to the shadows and when he’s close enough to buildings, he encourages her to tighten her grip around his neck and flies the rest of the way home, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.      

In the back of his mind he wonders if he pretends long enough, if it'll become real. If this little girl will become his little sister, if they can become the family that he desperately needs. Or possibly, based on her hesitancy and confusion about affection, the family that they both desperately need.      

(After all, he's always wanted siblings.)     

* * *

The morning after Dick takes in the little girl, The Man returns. Dick wasn’t expecting to see him so soon. He’s sitting with the girl seated in his lap, as he carefully spoons cereal into her mouth.     

“What is going on here?” The Man says, removing his coat.     

Dick flinches. He’s not ready to be near him, not after yesterday. “Nothing,” he whispers, feeding the toddler another bite.     

“Did I say you could have anyone over?”     

“No, but—”     

“I don’t care.” The Man walks over to him and grasps Dick’s chin in his hand. “You have five rules you need to follow if you don’t want to end up back in the streets. One: Do as I say, two: let no one into this apartment, three: keep the apartment clean, four: do not leave the apartment without permission, and five: get perfect grades in school. So, how many rules have you broken?”     

“One.”     

“Wrong.”     

“No! I’m not wrong—” Dick’s face whips to the side and he presses a hand to his burning cheek.     

“You don’t speak to me like that.” The Man shakes his hand out and takes a seat on the opposite side of the table. “By letting her in, you’ve broken two rules. You haven’t done as I said nor have you kept people out of the apartment.”     

Dick doesn’t start crying even though he wants to. He tightens his grip on the baby and buries his face into her hair. When he looks up again, The Man is still just sitting there looking bored, as if he hadn’t just slapped Dick across the face.     

“Who is she?”     

“I don’t know.”     

“How can you not know?”     

“I found her last night, I don’t think she has any parents.”     

The Man crosses his legs and begins to drum his fingers on the table. “And where did you find her exactly?”     

Dick stares at the table and traces his index finger over the grain of the wood.     

“Richard.”     

“Yes?”     

“Where did you find her?”     

Dick trembles in his seat.     

“Are you going to make me ask again?”     

The little girl reaches up and pats Dick’s cheek softly, staring at the moisture on her hands confused.     

“Richard.”     

“At the park. I found her at the park.”     

“And now we’re at three broken rules. Give me one good reason not to throw you back out on the streets.”     

Dick freezes, mind scrambling for an answer, but he knows there isn’t one. The Man is confident that there is no room for Dick to manoeuvre out of this. Dick broke the agreement and unless he can turn this around on The Man, he knows he’ll end up homeless again.      

“You said,” Dick mumbles, “you said that you would give me whatever I wanted, I want to take care of her.” It’s the best he can do, redirect focus from his part of their deal to The Man’s part.     

The Man throws his head back and laughs, shaking his head. “If you want something from me, you’ll have to earn it.”     

Dick recoils at the thought, thinks about the previous night that led up to this point. “How do I do that?”     

“How do you think?”     

Dick hesitates. He’s not sure if he can ‘seal the deal’ again. The toddler manages to shakily raise a spoonful of cereal to his mouth and Dick takes a bite. She smiles at him, it’s a small one and Dick finds it so easy to wrap his arms around her and pull her close.     

He picks her up and walks over to the couch to place her down. She stands up immediately and reaches for him. Dick brushes her hair aside and places a kiss to her forehead. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”     

He walks down the hallway and into the bedroom and when The Man enters the room behind him, he knows he’ll never be able to sleep in here again.     

(It’s easier this time. Maybe because he’s not doing it for himself, but someone else. A sweet little girl who looks as desperate for affection as Dick feels. When it’s over, The Man takes them to the doctor’s office. Dick likes the doctor, she’s nice and warm and he knows that she doesn’t like The Man. She gives both him and the toddler a check up and by the end of the visit, he finally decides on a name for the little girl: Cassandra.)     

* * *

Two months later The Man storms into the apartment while Cassandra sleeps on the pullout couch.     

“What is this?” he snarls, waving a sheet of paper in Dick’s face.     

Cautiously, Dick takes the paper from him and examines it. After a second, he cringes and looks up at The Man. “I don’t know,” he admits softly.     

“You don’t know?”     

“I don’t know what it says.”     

The Man throws the paper into Dick’s face and Dick flinches away from him. “Get out.”     

“What? Where am I supposed to go?”     

“I don’t care. Grab your brat and get out of my sight.”     

“No,” Dick snaps, mind flashing back to when they ‘sealed the deal’, “you can’t do that. We had a deal.”     

“Which you just broke,” he snarls at him, gesturing to the paper on the floor.     

“I did not!”     

“You’re report card says otherwise. I want a trophy,” The Man reminds him, “and if you’re too stupid to read then you cannot be my trophy. Get out.”     

Dick recoils, ready to lash out and start screaming back at him when a tiny hand grabs his own. He looks down at Cassandra who stares up at him, her free hand stretching out to him. He sniffles a little and hoists her up onto his hips. He presses a kiss to the top of her head and gently rocks her back and forth. It doesn’t take much effort before Cassandra rests her head on his shoulders and her eyes drift shut.     

“I know how to read,” he says calmly. “It’s just that I learned to read in Russian, not English.”     

“And why is that?”     

“It’s my father’s native language. Mine too, I guess, well Russian and Romani. Whenever I had to have lessons for bookwork stuff, my dad would always teach me in Russian. I only know how to speak English because it was the only language everyone had in common at the circus and speaking it was enough. There was never any point in learning to read or write in it.”     

The Man hums and begins to pace in front of Dick. He swallows back his tears and fear and waits for The Man to make a decision.     

When The Man steps in front of him, looming over him and forcing Dick to crane his neck upwards, Dick holds his breath.     

“Do you speak any other languages?”     

“Portuguese,” he blurts out, “Italian, French, Spanish, a little German, Arabic and Cantonese. I can’t speak all of them perfectly, but I know enough to get by in a conversation.”     

“Can you read or write in any of them?”     

“No.” Dick winces.     

The Man hums and Dick allows a small glimmer of hope to flicker into existence. “I’m going to have someone come here to test you. If you’re lying to me, you’ll be back on the streets; but, if you’re telling the truth, you might just make a better trophy than I expected.”     

The next day The Man returns with an old guy. The old guy introduces himself as Mr. Morrison and he is strict and cold and he asks Dick a bunch of questions in a bunch of different languages. Dick does his best to answer all of his questions in the language they’re asked in, but Mr. Morrison’s expression never wavers from intense dislike and Dick frets the whole time they’re talking.      

After the interrogation, Mr. Morrison hands Dick a stack of papers and tells him to fill them out, he worries for all of five seconds before he glances over them and realizes, not only was it all in Russian, it was extremely easy. Twenty minutes later, Dick hands him his work and the old man looks over it. When he’s done, Mr. Morrison and The Man walk into the bedroom and as tempted as Dick is to eavesdrop on their conversation, he isn’t willing to risk the potential punishment.     

Instead, he sits down on the couch and plays with Cassandra. He speaks to her softly in Russian, an idea he had after The Man left yesterday. He wants her to learn his family languages and while he’s not sure how to teach her, he does know that if he talks to her enough in them she’ll learn them on her own. He’s made the decision to alternate between the three languages: he’ll speak to her solely in Russian one day, then Romani the next, and finally English on the third before restarting the cycle.     

When the two come out of the room, Mr. Morrison heads for the front door immediately. Dick looks up at The Man and feels his heart beating in his chest. The Man smiles at him and offers him a black pouch. Dick takes it and unzips it. Inside are two cards and a sheet of paper, when he pulls them out, Dick recognizes them. A health card, a social security card, and a birth certificate. All three of them are under Cassandra’s name.     

“Cain?” he asks, fingers tracing the lettering of name.     

“She needed a last name for this to go through.”     

“January, 26, 2003?”     

“She needed a date of birth and, if you recall, the doctor said physically, she’s about three years of age. Now, are you done questioning me?” His voice slips into a deeper tone and Dick knows he needs to back off.     

Dick thinks back to when The Man handed him his own packet of stuff, but with his passport as part of the package. He thinks about what he had to give The Man in order to have them returned to him. “Why are you giving me these?”     

“They’re your reward. No one will ever be able to dispute her citizenship, now. As far as anyone will be able to tell, she was born and raised here in Gotham.”     

“A reward for what?”     

“Becoming a better trophy.” The Man sits down on the couch and Dick shifts Cassandra out of his lap and tries to hide her from The Man’s sight. “Every day, Morrison is going to come over here and tutor you. You will learn to read, write, and speak each of the languages you already know fluently. You will bring up your grades in school and you will not let them slip. I expect you to be perfect. If I just wanted a pretty face, I would have grabbed some slut off the streets and been done with this. Do you understand?”     

Dick glances down at Cassandra who sits beside him, small hands holding onto Dick’s as she plays with his fingers. “Yes.”     

(He’s only known her for two months, but Dick already loves her so much. She’s the first thing he sees in the morning and the last thing he sees before he goes to bed. She loves to lie on his chest and listen as Dick speaks to her, her small hands tracing his lips. Sometimes, she even joins in and Dick can listen as her quiet babbles join in with his voice as he sings to her one of the many songs his mother used to sing to him. If he has a nightmare, she lets him pull her close and she’ll press small sloppy kisses to his cheeks and Dick has no idea how he survived without her. She’s his little sister now and she’s the reason he wakes up in the morning)     

* * *

Jason is his second reason.      

Jason and his mother move into the apartment across the hall from Dick roughly six months after Dick takes Cassandra home. He's walking Cassandra home from the daycare she stays at while he's in class—a daycare that The Man pays for—when he sees the tiny red headed boy sitting with his back against the door.      

Cassandra toddles over to him, her tiny hand reaching out to run through the boy's hair. “Hi,” she chirps, but Dick can tell she’s distracted by the vividness of the boy's red hair and Dick can't blame her because he can’t help but find the colour beautiful.      

The boy scowls at Cassandra, but makes no attempt to stop her.      

“Are you okay?” Dick asks him, crouching down in front of him.      

Blue eyes peer up at him through messy bangs. The boy doesn’t speak, and for a second he thinks the boy is like Cassandra used to be, mute, speechless, wordless; but after the second passes the boy speaks. “Mama forget me.”      

Dick bristles at the thought of a mother forgetting her child. He thinks of his mother who always knew where he was and what he was doing at the circus regardless of how long it had been since she had last seen him. “Where is she?”      

The boy turns around and points at his apartment door. “Inside.”      

Dick frowns and tries the doorknob, but he isn’t surprised to find it locked.      

He thinks about picking the lock, he doesn’t think it would be very hard and the escape artist at the circus taught him how to pick locks, but he decides that there are too many ways that can go wrong.      

The thought of someone accusing him of trying to break into the apartment, of calling him a thief, causes him to remember his mother's disappointed gaze. He can’t do it. He hates remembering her like that, but when he sees the people he's surrounded by, his mind just keeps flashing back to her intense hatred of criminals.      

“Why don’t you come over to my place?” he offers, standing up and holding out a hand.      

The boy doesn’t immediately take it. He inspects it first, before slowly his hand reaches out and rests on Dick's. “Kay.” The boy gives Dick the sweetest smile and Dick can’t stop himself from grinning back, especially when Cassandra takes the boy’s other hand.     

* * *

Dick meets Catherine Todd later. He trusts her for reasons he's never able to articulate. He allows her to take over the responsibility of watching Cassandra while he's in school and he knows the money he pays her—money The Man gives him—usually goes towards taking care of Jason.      

He doesn’t know much about her husband, Dick never meets him. When Two-Face murders him, though, Dick tries to help her out more. Their bond deepens, as a result, and Dick finally understands why he trusts her so much. It’s because she gets him, even when Dick barely knows her, she still understands him in a way no one else has tried to in a long time. When The Man comes over to his apartment because he wants to have Dick, Catherine immediately tells Cassandra to come over to her apartment. She doesn’t ask any questions about it or judge him in any way and when he stumbles across the hall to her apartment, she opens the door and gives him a hug.     

He can cry around her and feel safe like he hasn’t in a very long time. He imagines that it’s like having a big sister. After her husband’s death, Catherine takes up prostitution to take care of Jason and to pay for her drug addiction, Dick returns the favour. Anytime she has a john, he hustles Jason into his own apartment for the night, so Catherine doesn’t have to worry about him.    

He worries about her, though, as her drug problem gets worse and worse. One day, in one of her more lucid moments, Dick is in her apartment to let her know that Jason is going to spend the night at his place when Catherine reaches for him and grasps his hand in her own. “Dick,” she says, “I need you to make me a couple promises.”      

“What?” he asks, sitting down beside her and letting her rest her head in his lap. When she doesn’t respond, he uses his free hand to run through her hair.      

When she finally speaks, it's with a trembling voice. “Never do drugs. They're awful and they’ll ruin your life.”      

Dick knows this. In the year that he's known her, he's watched her life spiral out of control. He's seen the control cocaine has over the people who live in this area. Crime Alley is a nightmare that Dick is trapped in unless The Man decides to relocate him.      

“I promise.”     

“Good,” she says. “Now, I want you to promise me that if anything happens to me, you’ll take care of Jason.”     

 “Wha—Cat, what are you talking about? Nothing’s going to happen to you.”     

“You don’t know that.”     

“Catherine—”     

“One of these days I’m going to end up OD’ing—”     

“Then you should stop now while you still have the chance.”     

“And when that happens, I want Jason to be taken care of.”     

“Catherine, just go to rehab or something and then you’ll be able to take care of Jason yourself.” Dick starts shaking when he pleads with her. His life is finally in some semblance of order and he doesn’t think he can deal with it falling apart again.     

He likes Jason. He likes how well he gets along with Cassandra; if someone picks on her because she’s quiet and stares at people instead of speaking to them, Jason rushes to her defence; he likes curling up with Jason and Cassandra in a beanbag, as Catherine reads them a story; he likes having a little brother around, something he’s always wanted.     

But, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to raise Jason on his own. Raising Cassandra is hard enough and Cassandra is a little angel. Dick loves them both, but he doesn’t know if he can take care of them both without being forced to bargain with The Man and Dick hates having to get anything from him.     

“If I could stop, I would.” Catherine clenches her eyes shut and Dick can feel his heart pounding in his chest.     

“You can.”     

“I can’t. I need it.”     

“Jason needs you more.”     

Catherine starts sobbing and Dick doesn’t know what to do. Sitting there stunned and helpless, he’s forced to listen to the words he knows he will one day take to his grave. “I wished I loved him enough to stop.”     

“Catherine—”     

“I never thought I would love him. When I first met his father, Jason was just this tiny little baby that was just learning to walk, he couldn’t even talk, he just babbled all the time. I used to think he was so annoying, just a brat I had to put up with if I wanted to be with his father. But, then one day, Willis and I got in a stupid fight and Jason toddled into the room and started punching Willis with his tiny fist and screaming, ‘No yell Mama! No yell Mama!’ Those were his first words, you know. I’ve loved that boy ever since. I never even knew it was possible to love someone that much. Fuck, I love him. But, it’s not enough, I wish it was enough. I want to see him grow up and become somebody important, better than his father, better than his no show mother, better than me.”     

“Then go to rehab or whatever, I’ll watch him while you’re gone,” he pleads.     

“Promise?”     

“What?”     

“Do you promise to watch him while I’m gone?”     

“Yeah, Cat, I promise to take care of him. Just, please, get some help.”     

“You’re a good kid, Dick.” Catherine sits up and brushes the tears from Dick’s cheeks. She pulls him into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, and Dick can feel his trembling begin to subside.     

The moment passes and Dick returns to his apartment and crawls onto the pullout couch between Cassandra and Jason. He’s going to get Catherine help, whether she likes it or not. She can’t leave them.     

When Dick goes to check on her the next morning, he finds her dead.     

(He doesn’t know how to explain this to Jason. He can barely understand it himself. He struggles to keep himself together in his grief, to stay strong for Cassandra and Jason, but it’s so hard. It’s different than losing his parents, his parents were ripped away from him without a choice. He doesn’t understand why she couldn’t stop, if not for him than for Jason who loves her so much. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he resents her for dying. For choosing to go instead of staying with them. It’s petty and stupid and awful of him, but in those moments he is a petty, stupid, and awful person.)     

* * *

It’s been three months since Catherine died. Jason hasn’t been coping well.    

Dick doesn’t know what to do.    

This is different from how he lost his parents and Jason is three younger than Dick was. Dick doesn’t know what to do to make him feel better. Before Catherine’s death, Jason used to love books, whether he was reading them or having them read to him. A story was the fastest way to put a smile on his face.    

But, now, Jason refuses to so much as look at one. Jason is suffering and Dick knows there is nothing he can do to make him feel better. It’s been three months since he last saw Jason really smile and Dick is ready to do anything to hear him laugh just one more time.     

Which is why he’s standing here with Jason and Cassandra, looking up at a half completed building that hasn’t been worked on in ages, instead of heading straight home where The Man might show up unexpectedly.    

The scaffolding is sturdy, though, and Dick usually comes here before class after he drops off Jason and Cassandra at daycare for the morning. He feels guilty sometimes, dropping them off earlier than he has to because he just wants a few minutes to himself. He’s their big brother and he should be happy to spend time with them. But, he’s not. Sometimes he just needs to get away and be by himself.    

He feels like a failure when he sneaks away in those moments. Like he doesn’t love them enough. He hears Catherine’s voice echoing in his head and it makes Dick feel awful. But he needs it, sometimes, to just get away and fly by himself. This scaffold has been his escape before he even met Cassandra. It used to be his private place, but he thinks Jason might need it now.    

He opens up his backpack and pulls out a couple hoodies and ties them together. “Hold on to me.”    

Jason scowls, but he does as told, arms and legs wrapping around Dick’s neck and torso, his face burying into his chest, and it’s easy for Dick to turn the hoodies into a makeshift sling.    

He turns to Cassandra and is about to kneel down so she can climb onto his back, when she smiles at him and shakes her head. She slips her hand into Dick’s and waits for Dick to squeeze her hand, before leading her into the structure. “Stay here,” he tells her, “and don’t talk to anyone. We’ll be back in a second.”    

“Where are we going,” Jason grumbles.    

“Flying.” Dick turns to the nearest bar and hauls himself up. He keeps going until he’s high enough and the bars are close enough that he knows he’ll be able to make a jump easily, and still keep an eye on Cassandra below.    

“Dick?” Jason whispers. His eyes are wide and he tightens his grip.    

“It’ll be okay, Jay-Jay.”    

Dick takes a deep breath, lets it out, and jumps. The initial jump isn’t as smooth as it should be. Jason’s weight is throwing him off, but it doesn’t stop him from catching the bar on the opposing side. He swings his body backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. When he has enough momentum, he allows himself to let go and catch the bar on the opposite side.   

He sticks to those simple movements for a few passes, until Jason loosens his grip and Dick is confident that he’s adjusted to the extra weight on his front. When he’s ready, he allows himself to start off with a simple somersault. Jason lets out a startled cry, his grip tightening again.   

It doesn’t take long, as Dick allows himself to build up to more complex flips, before Jason is laughing. It’s a sound he hasn’t heard in a long time.   

He’s missed it so much.   

Dick does have to go back to the ground, though. He can’t stay up here as long as he usually does with Jason weighing him down and he doesn’t want to risk not being at the apartment if The Man returns. When Dick sets Jason on the ground and he sees his excited grin and watches as Cassandra hugs Jason without being pushed away, he knows that this was worth it.   

“We’ll do this again,” he promises. “I’ll teach you both to fly on your own.”   

Jason chatters the whole walk home and Cassandra skips and occasionally interjects and Dick doesn’t think anything can take this happiness away from him.   

And then he sees The Man sitting at the table waiting for him.   

Dick knows he knows the second he sees The Man folding his newspaper and placing it on the table.   

“I don’t recall,” The Man says, “giving you permission to make any stops on your way home, Richard.”   

Jason tenses up and Dick knows there's an angry scowl on his face. Dick bends over and smoothes his fingers over the stress lines he can see forming on Jason’s forehead before placing a kiss on the top of his head. He pulls Cassandra close to him and just breathes in her scent for a second before he kisses her cheek, as well.    

“Go to the bedroom and start your homework,” he tells them.   

Dick hates sending them to the bedroom. He hates having to go in there. He only ever goes in there for a change of clothes or because he has to earn something from The Man. But, he knows The Man isn’t going to want to relocate to have this conversation for Dick’s peace of mind, which means he needs to send his siblings to safety.   

He stands back up and looks at The Man. “I just needed a few minutes back in the air,” he lies.   

“That changes nothing,” The Man says, walking over to Dick. He reaches over and grabs a fistful of Dick’s hair and pulls his head up to expose his throat. “You did not have my permission.”   

With one hand wrapped around his neck and the other gripping his hair tightly, Dick can feel fear beginning to creep its way into his heart. He wants to cower and grovel and promise never to do it again, but he knows that’s not true. He thinks about Jason’s smile and Cassandra’s relief and knows that whatever The Man does to him will be worth it. He made his siblings happy today and Dick refuses to regret that.   

And knowing that makes it easy. Easy to look this man in the eye and refuse to flinch.   

After a moment The Man chuckles as he releases him. “You’re lucky you’re so skilled. I’d forgotten you were a gymnast. I expect a gold medal from you.”   

“What?”   

“In 2016, you will be old enough to compete in the Summer Olympics. I expect you to win the gold medal for whatever event you’re competing in.”   

Dick doesn’t know what to say to that and that doesn’t really matter because The Man exits the apartment.   

* * *

A couple of days later Dick’s schedule has changed. He stands with Cassandra and Jason in the gymnasium that he is expected to be at every day after school and on weekends as well. Time with Mr. Morrison has been pushed back several hours to accommodate this and the dance lessons he’s been enrolled in.   

It’s nerve wracking being here after so much time has passed.   

The instructor, Ms. Kat, gives him another cold glare as she walks passed him to a group of children all eagerly watching a girl with beautiful red hair working on the uneven bars. Dick knows he’s supposed to have private lessons with her, but she looks busy and Dick would rather not spend so much time with someone who looks at him like that.   

Instead he leads Jason and Cassandra over to an unoccupied balance beam and begins to give them lessons on what to do on it.   

His eyes keep drifting over to the girl, though, and it doesn’t take long for Dick to notice why she’s been on the bars for so long. She’s struggling with her routine. Dick watches her go through it again. It’s a complex routine and Dick likes watching it, but he can see her problem.   

She doesn’t trust herself enough. She’s reaching for the bar too early or too late sometimes, there’s a nervous tension running through her body, and a desperation when she reaches for the bar that shows just how badly she wants it.   

“Are you going to fix her?” Cassandra asks, standing on the balance beam.   

“I can’t fix her, Cass,” Dick laughs.   

“Yes, you can. You fix everything.” Jason says, teetering slightly as he tries to walk across the beam.   

“You really think so?” Dick asks.    

Jason rolls his eyes at him, but nods along with Cassandra and Dick is touched at their faith in him. He’s also terrified because that’s a lot of pressure and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he ever manages to fail to meet their expectations of him.   

“Dismount,” he says, “and then we can see about helping her.”   

There dismounts are simple, but flawless, and Dick is so proud of what they’ve accomplished in a little under an hour. They both slide a hand into one of his and Dick gives them a little squeeze and leads them over to the girl.   

She’s older than him, Dick notices. Not by much, maybe four or five years, but it’s enough of an age difference to make him feel slightly intimidated.    

Two and a half years ago, he would have had no problem walking over to talk to a random teenager. But, two and a half years ago he had never experienced the horrors of a juvenile detention centre.   

She’s standing on the ground stretching her arms out and Dick cautiously approaches her. She smiles politely at them and Dick can feel himself tensing. He doesn’t really want to talk to her, doesn’t want her or her glaring coach anywhere near his kids.   

“Can I help you?” she says.   

“No,” Jason says before Dick can respond, “but we can help you.”   

The girl raises an eyebrow and Dick can see the beginning of a scowl forming on her face. It’s an instinctive reaction that causes Dick to pull Jason and Cassandra behind him, shielding them from view. Jason is stubborn and impulsive, so he immediately tries to squirm out from behind Dick to stand beside him, but Cassandra is patient and observant and calms him down.   

Dick waits until his kids are motionless behind him and then he speaks. “You’re trying too hard. You need to relax.”   

“Excuse me?” she snaps.   

Ms. Kat glares at Dick and he can see her preparing a retort of some sort, so Dick moves before she finishes gathering her thoughts together.   

“You’ve been doing this,” he says, standing just behind the lower bar on the uneven bars. He jumps up catches the bar and begins to perform her routine.   

It’s easy. He’s been watching her for so intently that he knows exactly what she does, when she does, and how she does it. It brings back memories of learning from his parents.  They would perform and all he had to do was copy them. Sometimes it was easy; other times he struggled with their movements. But, every time, his mother wanted him to watch them until something clicked in his brain. He watched them until he knew their movements just as much as he knew his own. Until he knew his mother’s bold and showy techniques and his father’s precise and complex manoeuvres by heart. Until those two approaches became part of his own gymnastic style.   

When he finishes and lands on the ground, the girl looks shocked. Ms. Kat looks shocked and Dick is unsurprised to see Jason and Cassandra beaming at him from where they stand. Dick takes a deep breath and walks back to his starting position. “But, what you should be doing is this.”   

And this time, the routine feels smoother, less forced. Dick feels like he’s gliding between the bars and not just throwing himself at each one. He closes his eyes because he doesn’t need them open, he knows where both of the bars are and Dick is enjoying this. The routine is difficult enough that Dick knows if he hadn’t been studying it earlier and mapping it out in his head, he wouldn’t be performing it so easily now. And when he finishes, sticks the landing, and opens his eyes, he’s met with a loud applause.   

He’s missed this.   

“You can make the flips,” he tells her, “you just have to trust yourself to land them.”   

The girl stares at him for a second and Dick resists the urge to flinch. And then she smiles at him. She has the third prettiest smile Dick has ever seen. “Thanks for the advice, squirt.”    

Dick scowls at her. “My name is Dick.”   

“Barbara.” She offers her hand to him and Dick shakes it.   

(In the back of his mind, Dick wonders if he’s just made his very first friend.)   

* * *

Tim is his third reason.   

They’ve just finished the last day of school, and in the hot summer heat, Dick is on his way to the doctor’s office with Cassandra and Jason.   

“How does it feel to be finished kindergarten?”   

Jason shrugs, “’bout the same as before.”   

“Next year we’ll stay at school all day?” Cassandra asks.   

“Yeah, we’ll go to school together and we’ll come home together.”   

“Good. I hate daycare. It’s for babies.”   

“Sorry, Jay-Jay,” Dick ruffles Jason’s hair and bites back a giggle at the scowl he gets, “but I couldn’t leave you guys alone in the mornings.”   

“Yes, you could have. We know how to get to school.” There’s a brief pause before Jason turns to glare at Dick. “And don’t call me Jay-Jay!”   

“Sorry.”   

The doctor’s office is located in a nicer part of Gotham, instead of in the slums where Dick lives. When they walk into the building, it only takes a couple of minutes to sign in for their appointment. The room slowly becomes more and more packed, and the only empty chair is the one closest to the door. They claim it and rest their backpacks on the floor beside it. 

Jason sits on one half of the chair, reading a magazine from the side table, and Cassandra sits in Dick’s lap on the other half of the chair almost silently humming to herself. It’s a nice moment and Dick sighs quietly to himself and pulls Jason closer to him so he can press a kiss to his forehead.   

They walk in during that moment. A small boy walks beside on old woman heading to the front desk. There’s an invisible wall between the boy and the woman and Dick wonders why. He doesn’t understand how two people can be so close physically, but so distant emotionally. The boy looks around with sad empty eyes and Dick smiles at him when they make eye contact. The boy smiles back shy and curious, a small light flickering into his gaze, and tiptoes over to Dick, after taking a small pouch the woman distractedly hands him.   

“Hi,” he whispers.   

“Hello,” Dick replies.   

Cassandra perks up and pulls the boy closer to her so she can hug him. “Small.”   

Jason peeks up from his magazine, looks at the boy, rolls his eyes, and goes back to reading.   

“Is this your first time here?” one of the secretaries asks the old woman.  

“Yes, Tim’s previous doctor retired and he recommended Dr. Evans to us.”  

“Is your name Tim?” Dick asks the boy.  

“Yeah.” Tim smiles shyly and Dick can’t stop himself from reaching forward to ruffle his hair.  

“Hi, Timmy, I’m Dick. And this is my little sister, Cass, and my little brother Jay-Jay.”  

“Jason,” the boy corrects.  

Dick can’t stop his grin from forming as Tim cautiously peeps over the edge of Jason’s magazine to see what it says. Jason looks up to watch Tim, a scowl forming on his lips, and Tim confidently points at a word on the page and says, “The.”  

Jason is startled and starts to fidget slightly when Tim beams up at him. After a second of silence, Tim starts to deflate. With wide eyes, Jason awkwardly pats him on the head. “Good job.”  

Tim grins and squirms closer to them and Dick chuckles softly as Jason continues to look baffled. Finally, with a pouting look of defeat, Jason puts the magazine down long enough to pick up Tim and awkwardly drag him into his lap.  

“Comfy?” Dick asks, as Jason picks the magazine back up so everyone can see it.  

“Yeah!” Tim cheers quietly and Dick soaks in how happy he looks.  

It’s something that he’s recently discovered about himself. He loves it when little kids are happy. Nothing can cheer him up faster than seeing a smile on a kid’s face. He remembers that he used to always go out of his way to make people smile when he was at the circus, but he doesn’t remember feeling like this afterwards. Like their happiness is the only necessity required to live.  

“Excuse me?” the old woman who is with Tim observes them with distant eyes. She’s not cold or upset with them, but she’s not pleased or accepting either.  

She’s neutral. Like the only reason anyone could make her care about this would be if they paid her.  

She walks over to them, but whatever she’s planning to do or say to them is interrupted when the door to the office slams open.  

A man, with his face painted in a mockery of a clown’s, strolls into the room carrying a pistol.  

“Now, now, ladies and gents, no need to panic.” The man steps forward in front of the others, and raises his hands in the air as if he’s trying to convince them that he’s harmless. “I’m sure you’re all wondering what I’m doing here and I can answer that no problem. I’m here to cause as much mayhem as possible and make sure Batman is too busy to deal with our boss.”  

No one says a word and no one dares to do so much as breathe. Everyone remains exactly where they are, even when the man cheerfully phones the police to inform them of his hostages.  

The man’s watch begins to beep.  

“Well,” the man chirps, “it’s time to raise some hell.”  

The old woman is the first to die. He shoots her where she stands in front of them. By some twisted force of nature, she falls forwards on top of them, and Dick feels awful. Guilty as hell, when he wiggles out from under her and arranges her body to lie more fully on top of his siblings.  

“Don’t move,” he whispers to them.  

He can barely make out Tim’s terrified sobs and rapid breathing over the screams of the other people in the room. Jason shushes him immediately and Cassandra wiggles closer to them instinctively.  

They need to get out of here, but Dick doubts that all of them will be able to escape together. So, the next best thing would be to give them an opportunity to escape.  

He reaches over to grab Cassandra’s hand and says, “When you get the chance, run.” Dick doesn’t let go until she squeezes back in acknowledgement.  

He needs a plan, but he doubts that he can come up with a good one. The man is in the middle of the room and he has his back turned to them. They might be able to escape, but Dick’s stomach turns at the thought of leaving everyone else in this room to deal with him alone.   

Dick crawls along the floor, by the time he’s behind the man, four other people are dead. Everyone else in the room is huddled into the far side of the room and Dick can hear some of the smaller children crying.  

Quickly Dick snatches the bottom of the man’s shirt and pulls it up. The man flails immediately and he turns his arms trying to grab him. But Dick is stubborn and scared and he has four kids behind him that he needs to protect, so he climbs up the man’s body and drags his shirt up farther because if he can trap this man’s arms then he can’t shoot at anyone.  

The man manages to twist his wrist enough to point the gun at him and Dick feels his heart stop because he knows there’s no way he can get himself out of this. The people start running for the door and one of them shoves the man and Dick goes flying off of him and slams into the secretaries’ desk. The man is enraged and advances forwards, his shirt back in place and the gun aimed at him.  

“You’ll pay for that.”  

They’ll escape, though. Dick thinks as he watches Jason squirm out from under the old woman. His eyes flick from the door to Jason, but Jason isn’t really paying any attention to him. He pulls Tim out and looks over at Cassandra, as she quietly stands up.  

They nod at each other and Dick is so relieved because they’re going to escape. They’re going to make it out of this alive.  

They run the wrong way.  

Jason tackles the man to the ground with a vicious snarl.  

“Fuck! You little shit!” he turns to point the gun at Jason, but Cassandra leaps at that arm and holds it down. “What the fuck?”  He goes to use his other hand to pry Cassandra off of him, but Jason manages to twist enough to grab it and stop him. He’s so distracted with trying to pry Jason and Cassandra off him, he doesn’t notice Tim as he walks over and reaches for the gun in his grip.  

He releases the gun absentmindedly, as he tries to shove Jason away, and Tim casually walks away with the gun, walking over to the trashcan and gently placing it inside.  

“Dismount,” he orders and watches as Jason and Cassandra spring away from the man with ease. Tim edges around the room back over to them, as the man climbs back to his feet.  

“ _Побег,_ ” he orders in Russian.  

“ _Нет._ ” Jason snaps back.  

“ _Не без вас._ ” Cassandra finishes.  

His kids are so goddamned stubborn. Dick is equally fond and irritated with their refusal to run.  

It doesn’t matter, though, because Dick watches a dark figure materialize in the doorway and stealthily walk behind the man. Batman grabs the man from behind and Dick isn’t sure what he does, but ten seconds later the man is unconscious.  

“Wow.” Tim breathes in awe. Jason’s fingers clench around Dick’s shirt and his jaw drops. Cassandra watches Batman closely and Dick wonders if she remembers him.  

Batman steps away from them, turning to exit the room, and Dick springs forward and grabs him by the cape. “Wait,” he says.  

But he has no idea what to say next.  

Batman stops and stands there with his back to them. “Turn around.”  

He turns around to face them and Dick isn’t sure what he’s doing. For a second he thinks about telling the man about Zucco because he’s still on the loose and Dick wants him in jail, but he can’t bring himself to say the words.  

Something about the man just seems off and Dick can’t discern just what’s bothering him. Batman turns to leave and Dick has no idea how he knows, but suddenly he understands what the problem is.  

Dick reaches forward and gently grabs the man’s right arm. He pulls it towards himself and examines the gauntlet carefully. Cautiously, he begins to gently pull it off and when Batman jerks away and tries to gently shove him with his other arm, Dick swats at it. “Behave yourself.”  

Dick has no idea why Batman allows him to pull off his gauntlet, and from the awkward air around him, he suspects the man doesn’t know why he does either. His wrist is a swollen mess, possibly broken, and Dick has no idea how he’s been using it, but he has the feeling that Batman hasn’t given it any time to heal properly.  

There’s the soft sound of a zipper coming undone, and seconds later Cassandra hands Dick his yellow scarf. While the weather isn’t cold enough to justify wearing a scarf, sometimes Dick needs an easy way to hide any hickeys The Man leaves behind. Dick wraps the scarf firmly around Batman’s swollen wrist and examines the binding, before stepping back.  

“If you’re going to run around playing superhero,” he says, and resists the urge to laugh hysterically at Batman’s offended expression, “you should have the common sense to take care of yourself.” Dick pulls the injury up to his face and presses a soft kiss to it. “You’re not expendable.”  

Cassandra hands him his backpack and Dick picks up Tim and swings him onto his hip. Jason falls into step beside him, scooping up his own backpack on his way out.  

“And, Batman?”  

“Yes?”  

Dick flushes slightly. Batman’s voice is deep and gruff and something about it sends shivers down his spine. “Thanks for saving us.” Dick smiles at him one last time before leading his siblings to safety, avoiding the cops swarming the place.  

(Whenever Dick thinks back on that moment, he can’t stop himself from blushing. He doesn’t really get it. He doesn’t know if it’s the way Batman looks or the way he sounds or the way he smells, but something about him causes butterflies to flutter in his belly and a soft smile to slip onto his face. It’s confusing and Dick isn’t sure what to think but he likes the feeling, which is probably why he spends so much of his time thinking about it.)  

* * *

  


It’s the first time Dick’s had to perform in front of a crowd in three years. He’s eleven years old now and the reminder of the fact that he’s doing this without his parents stings. He misses them sharply, but he knows that he can’t let that interfere with his routine.  

Ms. Kat rubs his shoulders and smiles down at him. “You can do this, Dick. I swear, you are one of the best gymnasts I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”  

Dick smiles at her. “I’ll be okay,” he informs her, “you should go check on the others. Katie looks like she’s going to be sick.” Ms. Kat smiles at him, pulling him into a brief hug, and walks over to the other competitors she’s in charge of.  

Dick sits down on a bench by himself, closes his eyes and goes over his routine in his head. When it’s his time to go, Dick scans the crowd as he walks over to the uneven bars.  

The Man is sitting in the audience.  

He falters. His stride is awkward and Dick almost turns and runs from the room.  

He can see The Man’s eyes narrow, but before Dick can even begin to guess at what’s going through his head he hears, “You’ve got this, Twinkle Toes!”  

His lips twitch into a smile as he waves over at Barbara who cheers from the crowd. Tim sits in her lap clapping eagerly, while Jason puts down his book and Cassandra sits up straight.  

It’s easier now. Walking over to the bars, waiting until he’s supposed to go, all of it becomes so much easier when he has his kids watching him from the crowd. His nerves disappear, just like they used to when his mother would smile down at him on their platform and his father would rest a hand on his shoulder.  

He can do this.  

Dick goes through his routine effortlessly, elegantly, efficiently and dismounts with his usual over the top flourish that makes Ms. Kat roll her eyes. He nailed it, he knows he nailed it, and there’s a steady hum of energy rushing through his veins. It takes a second, but the audience is exuberant in their applause.  

He’s missed this.  

He walks over to Ms. Kat who watches him with wide eyes. “There’s no way you didn’t just take the top spot,” she whispers. “I have never seen such an amazing routine in my life.”  

Dick laughs softly, “That’s because you’ve never seen the Flying Graysons under the Big Top.”  

And somehow, it hurts less to think that.  

(She’s right, though. Dick does take first place. Tim gushes and is so excited and Jason very proudly informs everyone that Dick is his older brother. Cassandra even talks the whole way home. Later, The Man stops by the apartment and he gives Dick permission to take his siblings out for the day. In the end, it’s one of the best days he’s had in a very long time.)  

* * *

His fourth reason is Stephanie.  

The first time Dick sees her, it’s from a distance. Unlike Cassandra and Jason who had been part of the afternoon kindergarten class, Tim is part of the morning class. He’s giving Tim his parting hug, when over the boy’s shoulder he sees the little blond girl stepping away from a brunet woman and walking towards the classroom doors.  

The woman is already turning to leave and Dick feels sad for the girl, even if he doesn’t know why.  

“Have a good first day of school,” he whispers into Tim’s ear. “Try and make a friend today. Love you.” He kisses Tim on the forehead and smiles down at him when he feels Tim squeeze him tighter.  

“Love you too,” Tim murmurs with a soft smile.  

The smile eases something in his chest, makes Dick feel better. Keeping Tim was more complicated than keeping Jason or Cassandra and Dick has no idea why. The Man just upped the conditions and refused to explain why. Sometimes Dick worries that he made the wrong choice by keeping Tim, but then he sees him smile and remembers how lonely and desperate to please he had been when they first met him in the doctor’s office.  

It was worth it, though. During moments like this, Dick can never bring himself to regret the sacrifices he made to keep Tim. He doesn’t know what caused the recent complications with Tim and he doesn’t particularly care. Tim is his little brother and Dick will die before he loses him.  

Later, during the hour long lunch break, Dick walks back to the kindergarten class entrance with Jason and Cassandra and sees Tim chatting with the blond girl he noticed earlier. When he comes to a stop beside them, Tim beams up at him cheerfully and the girl watches him with weary blue eyes.  

“Dick, this is Steph’nie. She’s my best friend. We played Superheroes and it was a lot of fun and I got to be Batman and Steph’nie was Batman too because she likes Batman and I like Batman and I like her!”  

“Wow, that sounds like you had a good day,” Dick laughs and chuckles as he kneels down to pull Tim into a hug. He catches a glimpse of Stephanie’s face out of the corner of his eye and he can’t stop thinking that she looks sad and a bit jealous, so he uses his other arm to pull her into the embrace and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Did you have a good day too, Steph?”  

Stephanie perks up immediately. “Yeah! We played and drawed and Tim readed to me and we sitted beside each other and we winned a prize because we did all our numbers first. And Timmy let me have his too. See?” Stephanie pulled off her purple backpack and pointed to two sparkly stickers that were stuck on the top of each of the straps.  

“They didn’t have any Batman stickers,” Tim explains.  

“Well, I’m very happy for both of you.” Dick stands up and stretches. “Shall we go have lunch?”  

“Yeah!” Tim cheers, but Stephanie looks down at the ground sadly. 

“What’s wrong, Steph?” Dick asks, crouching back down beside her.  

“I think mommy forgotted me,” she whispers.  

Dick flinches, ever so slightly, and his eyes flicker over to Jason. The reminder hurts, even after all this time, just the briefest of mention of Catherine causes him to ache.  

“What about your daddy?”  

“Daddy was a bad boy and the police took him away.”  

Dick’s heart breaks just a little and he pulls Stephanie into a hug.  

“Why don’t you come have lunch with us?” he asks her.  

“Really?”  

“Really.”  

“Yay! Timmy, we can stay together and play more Superheroes!”  

Dick laughs and herds the children towards the nearby playground where they’ll eat lunch before they drop Stephanie and Tim off at daycare.  

“Are we keeping her?” Jason asks. There’s a look on his face that suggests the question is completely rhetorical because he already knows the answer.  

Before Dick can protest because he does not just go around keeping children, Cassandra answers him. “Yes.”  

(In the back of his mind, Dick knows what he’s doing is wrong. He shouldn’t be walking off with another child that isn’t his, but no one say anything. The next day when he walks Stephanie to school, he looks for the woman she was with previous day, but he doesn’t see her. He keeps an eye out for her for several weeks, but no one mentions it or comments on the fact that Stephanie is his kid now. In the end, Dick just accepts it. Stephanie is his little sister now and Dick isn’t about to give her back to some woman who actually managed to forget her.)  

* * *

The apartment is too small for them now. It’s a one bedroom apartment with five people living in it and the only bedroom is never used for anything besides storing clothes and when Dick has to ‘seal the deal’. It’s inevitable that Dick has to ask for a bigger place.  

The Man is tucking himself back into his pants when Dick speaks up. “What do I have to do to earn a larger apartment?”  

The Man looks over at him with cold amused eyes. “And why do you need another apartment?”  

Dick huffs softly to himself. He knows The Man knows why, but he’s drawing this out anyways. “This apartment is too small for all five of us.”  

“You could always get rid of some of your brats.”  

“That’s not an option.”  

The Man chuckles. He grabs Dick by the hair and pulls him to his feet. “Stick out your tongue.” The second he does, The Man pinches the muscle between his thumb and index finger, pulling on it and examining it closely. He moves down to Dick’s nipples and tweaks both of them roughly before moving down to his bellybutton. He jabs a finger into the hole and pulls back a little, but in the end he shakes his head and crouches down so he can examine his penis.  

Dick can’t stop his breaths from coming out in scared little pants. He bites his lips and tries to control the whimpers that desperately try to work their way out of his throat. There’s a smirk on The Man’s lips, as he rolls Dick’s penis around in his hands and prods at his urethra. He makes a small sound of interests, before he pries Dick’s legs further apart. His fingers prod at Dick’s labia and he can’t stop the sob that slips out.  

He has no idea what The Man is thinking, but he’s scared anyways. He’s already hurting down there and he doesn’t want The Man anywhere near that part of him until he’s had a little time to heal. The Man slides a finger inside him and Dick knows he only does it because Dick doesn’t want him to.  

It’s awful and uncomfortable and Dick hates it, but he knows that the more he reacts, the longer The Man will do it. He keeps his whimpers to minimum and waits for The Man to move on. When he slides his finger out, Dick grimaces at the sight of it. He presses it to Dick’s lips and Dick has to fight his gag reflex when the taste hits his tongue. He can taste semen and the fact that The Man is feeding him it from his body makes his stomach twist in revulsion.  

He sucks The Man’s finger clean because they really do need to move somewhere with more room. They’re all running into each other and driving each other crazy and Dick loves his siblings, but if he doesn’t get some space to himself he might actually lose his mind.   

The Man slowly drags his finger over Dick’s tongue and traces his lips. He grips Dick by the hips and twists him around roughly and makes him kneel over the bed. He pries Dick’s ass cheeks apart and just stares.  

Dick blushes. He hates this. He hates this so much. It’s embarrassing and awful and humiliating and Dick has no idea why The Man wants to look at him there. He feels The Man press his fingers against his anus and he sobs. He can’t hold it back. He hears The Man laugh and the pressure increases. For a second, Dick thinks The Man is actually going to stick his finger in his bum.  

He doesn’t, though. He stands up and steps away from him. Dick turns and sits on the bed to watch him.  

“I’ll be here tomorrow at 5 to pick you up. If you’re late, the deal’s off.”  

“Yes, sir.” Dick doesn’t bother asking if the others can come with him. The answer is no. He’ll have to prepare dinner for them tonight and remind them not to answer the door for anyone.  

* * *

The next day, The Man takes Dick to some sort of hole in the wall shop. The shop is a lot cleaner than Dick thought it would be. Despite the outer appearance of the store, Dick can’t find a single speck of dust inside the store.  

A large tattooed woman walks over to them and inspects Dick from head to foot. “This the one?” she asks The Man.  

“Obviously.”  

“He seems a bit young to want a Prince Albert.”  

“He wants it.”  

Dick has no idea what they’re talking about. He gets the feeling the woman is right, though.  

The woman eyes The Man coldly, but places her hand on Dick’s shoulder and gently pulls him along with her into a backroom. When The Man begins to follow them, the woman glares at him. “We don’t need an audience.”  

The Man snarls at her, but before he can say anything else, the woman has closed the door behind them.  

She gestures to a large chair and sits down on the stool beside it. “Do you know why you’re here?”  

Dick shakes his head and watches as she shakes her head and looks at him with soft eyes.  

“Why are you with that awful man?” she asks.  

Dick hesitates. He’s never told anyone, but she looks like she understands. Like she cares and Dick really misses having someone older who cares about him. Babs is nice and all, but she’s been pretty distant lately. Even if she wasn’t, she’s not old enough to give Dick the kind of support he wants.  

“I had nowhere else to go.” Dick contemplates telling her about Zucco, but he doesn’t know if he still has a hit on his head and he’d rather not risk it. “I’ve got little brothers and sisters to take care of, too. It’s just easier to do what he wants to keep them safe.”  

The woman sighs softly. She looks like she wants to say something, but in the end she closes her eyes for a brief few seconds.  

“I’m going to give you a Prince Albert piercing,” she tells him.  

Dick nods his head, even though he has no idea what that is beyond some sort of piercing. The woman gives him a sad look, before she pulls out her phone. She’s on it for less than a minute when she hands it over to him to look at.  

Dick recoils.  

He drops the phone and it lands in his lap.  

He sobs. He doesn’t want her to do that. Dick has half a mind to run from the room. She’s going to give him a Prince Albert.  

She’s going to stick a needle through his penis.  

He cries for a little and he can’t stop himself from shaking, while she walks around gathering up the things she needs. She lets him, though. She waits for him to get it all out before she has him take off his pants.  

(It hurts. It’s the most painful thing that Dick has ever experienced. Even when she’s done, there’s still a dull throb in his penis and Dick can barely stop himself from crying again. She goes over all the things he has to do to make sure he doesn’t get an infection. The Man is happy with her work, but he asks why she didn’t give Dick a wand. The woman snaps at him that his first piercing can’t come out for at least six weeks and wands aren’t for everyday wear. Dick doesn’t find out what they’re talking about until four months later when they return so she can teach him how to insert one. It’s even worse than a normal Prince Albert.)  

* * *

Christmas is a couple of weeks away and Dick is determined to make it a good one. It’ll be his second Christmas with everyone, but his fifth one without his parents. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that four and a half years have passed. At times it feels like much longer, an entire lifetime ago; at others, much shorter, like he blinked and suddenly realized he’s missed several years of his lifetime. 

He’s twelve years old now and he wonders if he’s become completely unrecognizable from the eight year old he was so long ago. If someone from the circus saw him now, would they recognize him? Would his parents? 

He doesn’t think so. He’s not sure how that makes him feel. 

He’s standing outside the smaller bedroom, looking inside and hoping The Man doesn’t drop by any time soon. His period is going to start soon. Dick can feel it in the way his nipples are too painful to touch and the recent amount of gross discharge in his underwear. If The Man comes and Dick is already bleeding, Dick flinches at the thought of what he’ll do. 

Thinking about his period, though, is a slippery slope that always leads him back to Catherine. When he was nine and having his first one, she had been the one to calm his panic and talk him through it. She gave him advice and warnings and little tips and tricks to get through it. Advice that he knows he’ll one day have to pass onto Cassandra and Stephanie. 

She promised to help him through his future heats too. But, she’s dead now. He’s going to have to deal with it alone. Dick tries not to think about it too much, but the older he gets, the more his thoughts drift towards the topic. He knows, one day in the future, he’ll have heats. At the moment, his current menstruation cycle is only useful to get his body in the swing of things. At some point, his body will decide it’s had enough practice and his heats will start. At that point, he will spend three days every month—the day before he ovulates, the day he ovulates, and the day after he ovulates—in heat. 

He’s scared, though, and there’s nothing he can do. He just has to keep it together and hope his siblings don’t pick up on his nervous tension. 

Something is bothering him, though. As he stands there looking at the bed, he can’t help but feel as though it’s wrong. It gnaws at him slightly and he walks over to the bed and stares at it. After a moment, he picks up a pillow and fluffs it. It makes Dick feel a little better when he places it back on the bed, but it’s not enough. 

The bed is not enough. 

He walks to the closet and pulls out the extra pillows and sheets that are in there. They always have extra things because sometimes things get stained and even after they’ve been thoroughly washed, Dick still can’t bring himself to use them. 

He drags the linens over to the bed and dumps them there so he can arrange them into a pile. It takes awhile, but eventually Dick is satisfied with his work. There’s still an itch in his brain, though. 

He paces the apartment looking around. It’s when he peaks into the other bedroom that he understands. He needs to fix up this bed too. There aren’t as many extra sheets lying around for this room, but Dick makes due with what he has. 

When he’s finished, he feels better. Less stressed.  

He exits the room and enters the living room where his siblings are waiting on him to watch Ice Age on the new television. It doesn’t take much effort to slip himself between Jason and Cassandra and the second he settles down, Tim crawls into his lap. Stephanie shifts in Jason’s lap, so that she’s able to lie down and rest her head in Tim’s lap and Jason reaches down to run his fingers through her hair. Dick wraps one arm around Cassandra’s shoulders and pulls her closer to him and presses a kiss to her forehead when he feels her resting against his side. 

The movie starts and Dick feels most of his anxiety fading away in the moments. There’s still this small incomprehensible mass of stress sitting in Dick’s brain, but during times like this, it’s easy to ignore. To relax and unwind and pretend that everything is perfect.  

He hears Jason let out a startled laugh and Cassandra’s soft giggles gently intertwining with the sounds of Stephanie’s bright laughter and Tim’s quiet snickers, and it reminds him that everything will be okay. 

He’s crawling into the bed with them, listening to his kids excitedly examining his work from earlier, when he hears the front door open.  

It’s The Man. Dick knows this immediately. And so do the others, based on the scowls on their faces. It’s not common for him to come at night, but it’s not uncommon either. Dick crawls back out of the bed, pressing kisses to foreheads and cheeks on his way. “Goodnight, guys,” he whispers. “I love you.” 

As much as Dick would like to stay and listen to his siblings’ response, he knows better than to keep The Man waiting. He slips out of the room and enters the smaller bedroom and looks at The Man who eyes the bed amused. 

“Is there something you need to tell me?” The Man chuckles and Dick flinches, shaking his head. 

He’s supposed to keep the apartment clean and Dick knows that the bed is definitely nowhere near The Man’s standards of acceptable. He keeps his head down and waits for The Man to start punishing him, but after a moment of nothing, he glances up. 

The Man sits reclining in the bed, his back against the headboard. Something about the sight of The Man, resting so casually in the bed Dick painstakingly prepared earlier does something to him. That nervous ball of tension he’s been carrying everywhere with him recently dissolves and something in his brain clicks into place. 

(It’s the worst sex Dick has ever had. Everything about it feels so good that Dick begs for it. He whimpers and sobs and pleads for The Man to never stop and he can’t do anything to stop himself. He needs this, even though he doesn’t understand why. He hates it so much, but that doesn’t stop him from crying when The Man gets up to use the bathroom. He stays in the room with The Man for an entire day and a half, and when The Man finally leaves, he takes all of Dick’s dignity with him.) 

* * *

It’s been three months since Dick’s first heat. He’s been dreading having his next one. A little research has taught him that similar to how his periods where irregular when he first started, his heats will be the same. 

It makes it worse in a way. Even though he doesn’t have to go through it every month yet, the knowledge that he will never know when it’s coming scares him. He doesn’t ever want to go through that again. He doesn’t ever want to become that again. 

He still can’t bring himself to look in the mirror. 

Dick closes his eyes as another wave of nausea washes over him. The stomach flu has been going around. Tim got it first from a classmate and gave it to Stephanie who gave it to Cassandra who gave it to Jason who somehow managed to give it to Dick two weeks after he had recovered. 

He doesn’t throw up, though, and after a few moments, he feels better and turns to leave the bathroom. The Man is standing there in the doorway watching him with narrowed eyes. Dick stands and wraps his arms around himself. 

“How long has this been going on?” The Man asks. 

Dick isn’t sure what to say to that. He’s only been sick for a couple of days, but the stomach flu has been around for a couple of weeks. He’s not even sure why The Man cares if Dick’s sick. 

He doesn’t say anything immediately, which turns out to be a mistake as The Man stalks over to him, yanks his head back and leans down to sniff Dick’s mating gland. Dick doesn’t fight him, he knows better than to fight him, but that doesn’t stop the small whimpers of fear from escaping his throat. After a moment, The Man snarls, pulls back, and drags Dick out of the bathroom. 

They step into the living room and Dick can see the way his kids tense in surprise at the sight of him. Jason jumps in front of Tim and Stephanie, growling at The Man, and Cassandra slips around to stand by Jason’s side. 

“Dick—” Jason steps closer to them and Dick holds up a hand to stop him. 

“It’s okay,” he assures them, blinking back tears and pushing down his fear. “I’m okay.” The Man shoves Dick at the door and his vision blanks out for a second when his head slams into the doorknob.  

The Man is slipping his shoes on and he glares at Dick long enough for him to get the message and grab his own shoes. 

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he tells them, and watches as Stephanie tries to peek around Jason, hands fisted tightly in his shirt. He barely manages to catch a final glimpse of Cassandra comforting Tim, before he’s forced out of the apartment and hears the front door slamming shut. 

The Man doesn’t say anything to him when they wait for the elevator. He just pulls out his phone and begins texting. Dick tries to stand as far away from The Man as possible, but when The Man looks up enough to glare at him, Dick cautiously creeps a little closer to him. 

The wait is nerve wracking and Dick still doesn’t get any answers when they’re in the car. The second they’re seated the driver begins to drive without a word. Dick sits shivering occasionally as he rubs his bare arms. He wants to say something, anything, but he knows better. He would do anything to get out of this situation, but he doesn’t even know what the situation is. 

The car rolls to a stop outside an inconspicuous building and Dick obediently climbs out of the car and waits for The Man to start leading him to their destination. They enter an office and The Man looks at the woman sitting at the receptionist’s desk, she pales immediately, and rushes through the door behind her.  

After a few minutes, the woman exits again and returns to sit at her desk. Dick approaches her cautiously. “Excuse me, where’s the bathroom?” 

“It’s right there,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “Do you—do you have to pee?” 

Dick blushes, it’s not exactly any of her business, but Dick nods his head. 

“You can’t!” she whispers, sitting up straight. “You have to hold it until the examinations is complete.” 

“What examination?” Dick is so close to finally having answers that he can feel goose bumps forming on his skin. The woman opens her mouth to speak, but the door behind her opens and The Man steps out, holding a green piece of cloth in his hands. 

With trembling fingers, Dick reaches out and takes it. 

(It’s awful. The whole experience is awful. Dick hadn’t known, hadn’t even thought it could be a possibility. He was pregnant. Was. Because they got rid of it. Dick had a baby inside him and they took it out of him. He doesn’t understand. Why would they do this? Why? How could he have failed at keeping his baby safe? How is he supposed to protect his siblings when he can’t even protect his unborn baby? Dick falls apart. He can’t be strong for his siblings. He can’t be strong for himself. He’s not okay. And he doesn’t think he’ll ever be okay.) 

* * *

Dick lies in bed staring at the ceiling. His baby is gone. Dick can still remember the painful cramping sensation of that thing being inserted inside of him. He can still remember the sight of bloody pulp in a long tube. His baby. 

It hurts. 

He hadn’t known he was pregnant, but that didn’t make it any less painful. He swipes at the tears on his face and tries to muffle his sobs. 

The bedroom door creaks open but Dick doesn’t have the energy to spare to check who it is. It’s doesn’t matter though because seconds later he can hear the pattering of feet and the bed dips under the weight of several bodies. 

Jason is the first one he sees. The red head lifts Dick’s head up enough that he can place it in his lap and run his fingers through Dick’s hair. Dick can remember doing this for Jason. Back when Jason was still reeling from the death of Catherine. Back before his baby had died. 

Stephanie is next. He feels her crawl over him and bury her face into his stomach. She clings tightly to him and Dick knows she’s scared. Stephanie is easily scared off. She hides it well behind a brave face and a bright laugh. 

Tim settles against his right side and presses his face against Dick’s mating gland. It comforts him. Tim always seeks out Dick’s mating gland, the area where his scent is strongest, when he needs reassurance. He can feel Tim taking in several deep breaths against the sensitive skin of his neck. 

Cassandra rests against Dick’s left side. The same side she used to curl up against when she was a toddler. One of her hands reaches out to hold his hands, while the other moves to wipe away his tears. After a second, she leans up so she can kiss his cheeks. 

It’s too much. He starts crying again. He can’t do this. He’s supposed to be strong for them and take care of them, but he can’t because he’s falling apart. He’s fractured and broken, torn and frayed, cracked and splintered. 

He can feel Stephanie tighten her hold, Jason’s fingers pressing firmer against his scalp; Tim placing small kisses against his neck, and Cassandra’s grip squeezing the feeling out of his hand. 

“It’s not your fault,” Tim says. 

And something in Dick shatters. 

All the little pieces of himself that he’s been clinging to desperately slip from his grasp. He can’t hold onto them; he can’t hold onto himself. Just like he couldn’t hold onto his baby. 

There's a slight shuffle, the sound of rustling pages, and then Jason begins to read aloud, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." 

Dick falls apart. But somehow, the others pick up the pieces. 

(They get through this. They get through this whole mess because even though Dick can’t do what he needs to do, the others all have ways of helping out. Cassandra is observant, she notices everything and she always shares what she sees with the others; Jason is protective, anytime he senses a danger to his siblings he steps forward and acts as a shield; Tim is resourceful, he has ways of getting things done with any limitation placed upon him; and Stephanie is adaptable, she adjusts to any situation and slides into any role she’s needed for. Together, the four of them patch Dick up and carry him forward. Because he can’t do it on his own, not right now, but they understand that. They take care of him and each other while he tries to cope. And eventually, somehow, someway, it does happen. There comes a morning when Dick thinks he’ll be okay one day. A morning when the world makes a little more sense and Dick is able to smile at his siblings and tell them how much he loves them.) 

* * *

Dick is sitting in a rounded booth with his siblings at a little family diner. The Man has loosened up on some of his restrictions for the summer and Dick has been making sure to take full advantage of it and take the others out more, letting them decide where they go each day. 

Stephanie swipes another fry from off Jason’s plate and Dick barely stops the snicker that tries to escape him. “Would you stop that?” Jason snaps. “Eat your own fries.” 

“But, Jay-Jay, yours taste better.” Stephanie whines. She reaches for another fry and Jason glares at her. From Jason’s other side, Tim snatches a fry from off Jason’s plate and stuffs it in his mouth. 

“I don’t have any fries,” he justifies, gesturing to his salad, when Jason turns to him.  

Which was a mistake on Jason’s part because Stephanie uses his distraction to grab another handful of fries. Cassandra stretches across the table to take a handful of fries from Dick’s plate and reaches around Tim to place them on Jason’s plate. 

Jason rolls his eyes, ignoring the fries and picking up his burger. “Why aren’t you eating Dick’s fries?” 

Stephanie laughs, “Because he wouldn’t complain about it, Jay-Jay.” 

“Don't call me Jay-Jay, you little brat!” 

They laugh and it feels so good to be able to do this, to sit here with his siblings and joke without a crushing weight pressing down on him. Their laughter, though, is not loud enough to cover up the conversation in the booth behind him. 

"So, did they pay up?" Dick hears this and tries to ignore the man talking behind him. Another illicit deal in Gotham doesn't need his attention. Not when his attention might get his kids caught in the crossfire. 

"Yeah," someone chuckles in reply, "they even paid a bit extra. Tony is a genius, the Zucco Protection Insurance is making us a lot of money." 

Dick freezes, chocolate milkshake halfway to his mouth.  

No.  

No.  

No. 

Tony and Zucco, the names can't be that uncommon. It's a coincidence. It has to be. But, what if it's not? His siblings fade away with the rest of the world because all Dick can focus on are the men behind him. 

"Anyways, call the check. I got a few more places to be before I hand over the cash to Tony." 

"Tonight? Can't you just give it to him tomorrow?" 

"Nah. He was pretty insistent that I drop it off at Robinson Park at eleven." 

"Ugh, he's in another one of his moods, isn't he?" 

Stephanie pokes Dick in the side. He jolts back to reality. His siblings each watch him, displaying their own nervous ticks, and he offers them a reassuring shaky smile. "I'm fine. Just got lost in my thoughts." 

They don't believe him. Dick can understand why. His heart is pounding in his chest and he can feel his blood racing through his veins. This can't be real. What are the odds? It has to be some sort of trap. 

It can't be true. There's no way Dick accidentally stumbled across some of Zucco's men who are failing to be discreet in a small restaurant. 

It's too good to be true. 

But, what if it's not? 

The knowledge eats at him. The possibility of this being his moment, of finally having a chance to confront Tony Zucco for murdering his parents—for ruining his life—is so hard to ignore. But, he has to think of the consequences. If it's a trap and something happens to him, what will the others do? Cassandra, Jason, Tim, and Stephanie would all be on their own. The responsibility of taking care of everyone would fall on Cassandra and Jason's shoulders. 

It's wrong of Dick to want to risk that. Selfish of him to risk their safety for his own sake. And it's awful, but Dick knows the only reason he won't go check out this lead is if The Man is at the apartment tonight and Dick is stuck at home for so long that he misses the meeting. 

* * *

The Man doesn't come that night.

Dick has his kids in bed by 9:30 and while part of him would simply like to slip out into the night without a word, he still has enough human decency to let them know where he's going. 

Leaning over, he smoothes hair away from Jason's forehead and presses a kiss there. "Jay, I'm going to be gone for a little while." Jason’s eyes widen at his whispered words and he tries to sit up. Dick gently presses him down and pulls the blankets up to the red head's chin. "There's something very important that I have to do at Robinson Park. I'll be back before you know it." 

"What if something happens?" Stephanie asks, her previously drooping eyes now wide awake. 

"If something happens before I get back, Jay and Cass will take you to the diner we were at for dinner. I'll stop by there on my way back to look for you." 

"But what if something happens to you?" Tim clarifies. 

Dick freezes. He doesn't have an answer. He doesn't know if he's stumbled across a golden opportunity or a trap. And even if he's not walking into a trap, there's still no guarantee that he'll get out of this just fine. He doesn't know if he'll find Zucco at the park and he doesn't know what he'll do if he does find Zucco. 

He should stay in tonight. He should stay with his kids instead of recklessly endangering them with his own selfish desires. 

But, he can't because he can't just ignore the fact that his parents' murderer is on the loose. The man who took everything from Dick is within his sight and he can't turn his back on this, not when it might be the only his chance.

It's awful of him. But, Dick has resigned himself to the knowledge that he is a terrible person. 

"I'll be back soon," he says, kissing each of their foreheads. 

* * *

An hour later, crouched in a tree, Dick can hear the two men below speaking. The second he hears them speak he knows the truth. 

It's Zucco. Tony Zucco. The man who murdered his parents is below him and Dick isn't sure what he's going to do. 

Zucco is right there. He's here, so close Dick can confront him with barely any effort. But, what does he say? What does he do? 

"Everyone pay up?" Zucco asks and Dick flinches at the sound of his voice. 

"Sure did. I think those damn chinks finally learned their lesson from the last time they refused." 

Zucco's goon hands over a clip of bills, but Dick can only hear the words he just said repeating in his mind. It clicks. He knows what Zucco Protection Insurance is. It's the money Pop refused to hand over, the money Zucco murdered his parents for. He's still doing this scam. Threatening to destroy people's business if they don't pay him. Forcing them to pay him so he leaves them alone. 

Dick doesn't know if the circus was the first place Zucco tried this with, but he now knows that it's not the last place. It pisses him off. 

How fucking dare he? 

He's walking around still doing this shit as if it doesn’t have consequences. As if it's not the reason both of Dick's parents are dead. As if this scheme of his isn't the reason why Dick is essentially a whore in this awful city where no one cares about anything or anyone and everyone has to survive on their own. Relying only on themselves. 

Dick lost a baby because of this. He lost his freedom and his sense of safety. He lost his virginity. He lost his parents. He's lost his self-respect and his dignity. He's lost so fucking much just so this piece of shit could make a buck, so he could send Pop a lesson for not giving into his demands. 

If he thinks that Dick is going to let this go on for any longer, he's in for a massive surprise. Because there is no way in hell that Dick is going to let this continue for another second. He's not going to let him continue to rip things away from hardworking people. He's not going to let whoever he's living off of continue to live in fear.

The way Dick lives in fear. 

The goon leaves, he heads in one direction, while Zucco waits patiently underneath the tree. Dick doesn't know who he's waiting for, he can't be bothered to give a fuck, he just waits until he hears a car engine, and when he can make out the shape of a car speeding away, he drops down from his perch. 

Zucco stares at him, eyes widening in shock, as Dick slowly stands from his crouch. Dick glares at him, noting how Zucco's hand drifts towards his hip, "Do you know who I am?"

Zucco looks him over, as his hand slides down his hip and rests in his pocket. "No." 

He's bored when he says it. Zucco speaks like he doesn’t give a fuck who Dick is. There's no recognition or guilt or anything else. Just disinterest. 

It hits Dick, like a baseball bat to a baseball, just how little his parents' death meant to this man. Just a means to an end. The hit he put on Dick's head, also meaningless. He was covering his tracks. Everything Dick has suffered through to this point means nothing to Zucco. He doesn’t care. 

It stings. His eyes start burning and he wants to scream and cry and shriek because how could this man kill his parents and not care? Not remember anything about them or the son he orphaned in the process. He doesn't understand. He can't understand. 

He doesn't, though. He won't give this scumbag the satisfaction of losing control. He tenses for a second, before he forces himself to relax. Tensed muscles strain, relaxed muscles stretch. He allows himself a deep slow breath. 

Then he moves. 

He clears the small distance between him and Zucco in an instant. Launches himself into the man's torso and knocks him to the ground. Zucco grunts, startled, raises his hands to shove Dick off, but Dick is nothing if not stubborn. Dick fights back, storming down blows onto the man's face to the best of his ability, holding in his own screams and pain. 

At some point, Zucco gets a hold of his gun and lifts it to press against Dick's forehead. Dick swallows, frozen in spot, and glares at Zucco through tear filled eyes. 

"Now, kid, you're going to get off me nice and slow and then you're going to give me one good reason not to blow your pretty little head off." 

Dick sniffles, refusing to give any more indication of his emotions than that, and slowly stands up from where he's straddling Zucco. With every inch he rises, Zucco follows him to keep the pistol in its location. When they're both standing, Zucco smirks down at him and it takes a second for Dick to understand what he's looking at. 

He can see down Dick's shirt. 

It is nearing the end of July and because of Gotham's humidity from the surrounding water, it is just a little too warm to wear anything heavy. Even if it hadn't been warm, Dick hadn't wanted to wear a jacket that would slow him down if he was walking into a trap. 

It doesn't matter, though. At some point or another, the collar of his long sleeved shirt had been stretched out enough that it’s possible to see down his shirt.

At his breast that have recently begun to develop.

It’s not a part of his body he likes, but Dick is a human and humans develop breasts during puberty and keep them for the rest of their life. It would be better if humans were like other mammals and only had breast when nursing their young, but they’re not. Which means Dick can’t avoid this stage of development.

Even though he’s male and he hates when The Man leers at his chest and gropes him and Dick thinks he’ll be sick to his stomach and—it doesn’t matter. How he feels doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that Dick is male and his breast development is supposed to be minimal because The Man already told him what will happen one day.

He’s going to get Dick breast implants.

The thought still makes Dick feel nauseous, unclean, uncomfortable, and disgusted. He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t want them at all, but he’s not going to get a choice. Dick has to take care of his siblings. He has to make sure they have a roof over their heads, food in their bellies, and clothes on their backs. He has to do this because he loves them so much and he doesn’t want them to suffer. And in order to make sure that they are okay, there’s nothing he wouldn’t forfeit.

Including his own body.

It’s okay, though. It’s okay because Dick loves them as much as they love him. And he just has to focus on that, cling tightly to the understanding of how much he loves them because sometimes that’s the only way he can go through with The Man’s demands.

Zucco raises his free hand towards Dick’s face and Dick finds himself jolting back into the moment. His own hands immediately move to his shirt, rearranging it to be more presentable.

“Now, now, there’s no need for that. After all,” Zucco murmurs, tugging Dick’s hand away from his shirt, “I believe we are at the part where you convince me not to blow your pretty little head off.”

Dick’s mind blanks. Both his heart and his breathing grind to a halt. He can’t breathe and he can barely think when he hears that. He can barely wrap his mind around the implications of that statement.

He feels his stomach heave, but he doesn’t move from his spot. He misheard. He must have heard him wrong because Zucco killed his parents and he didn’t—

He couldn’t—

There’s no way—

This time Dick can’t stop the tear that escapes.

“No,” he says, trying to escape Zucco’s grip. Because it’s bad enough when he has to have sex with The Man, but there’s no way he will ever have sex with Zucco.

Zucco taps the trigger his index finger is resting on. “Are you sure?”

Dick swallows, tries to hide his fear behind a watery glare. “Positive.”

“Unfortunate. I would have let you go, but since I can’t have any witnesses for my upcoming meeting…” Zucco trails off, but he’s still leering at Dick in a way that makes him ashamed.

Zucco is offering him a way out. Dick should take it. He knows he should take it. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s ever done.

But it feels like it would be.

Just the thought of letting Zucco touch him makes him fills him with revulsion. This man killed his parents and he’s offering Dick survival in exchange for sex. Dick can’t accept that offer because he knows, if he did, he would be betraying his parents; however, he can’t shake the feeling that if he doesn’t accept the offer, he’ll be betraying his kids. Because he owes it to them to stay alive for as long as he can.

He promised himself he would take care of them. Take care of them the same way he wished someone had taken care of him when he lost his parents. But he can’t do that if he’s dead.

He shouldn’t have come here.

It was selfish of him. He knew what he was doing was reckless when he left earlier, but it’s not until now that it’s really sinking in just how terrible his decision had been.

He’s going to have to choose between his parents and his kids because there’s no way he can get out of this situation without having to turn on one of them.

Another tear leaks from his eyes as Dick struggles to regain control of himself. He has to pick who to stay true to. And it hurts. It hurts so much because it’s not a choice he wants to have to make. It’s not a choice he should have to make.

But he does and there’s no one to blame but himself.

And it’s not much of a choice either.

When he stops trying to escape Zucco and tilts his head to one side submissively, Dick is filled with such a deep sense of self-loathing that he knows he’ll never be able to like himself again.

He has to pick to honour his parents or his kids, but his parents are dead.

They’re dead and never coming back. His kids, on the other hand, are waiting for him at home and Dick has to get back to them. He hopes his parents, from wherever they’re watching over him, understand this choice. He could die for his parents right now. But he won’t, instead, Dick is going to live for Cassandra, Jason, Tim, and Stephanie.

It might be the wrong decision, but it’s the only one Dick can bring himself to make. He loves his parents. He loves them so much he tracked down their murderer and confronted him in the middle of the night at an empty park. But he has other people he loves too. People he has to prioritize over his dead parents.

It feels wrong to feel that way. To think for even a second that he should have priorities that supersede that of avenging his parents feels like blasphemy. But he does have other things he has to do before confronting Zucco. He has to make Cassandra smile, Jason relax, Tim laugh, and Stephanie sparkle. But in order to do any of that, he has to let go of his parents.

When he first met The Man, Dick only agreed to his conditions because he wanted Zucco in jail. Every time he’s seen The Man since, in the back of his mind, he’s always wondered when he’ll have earned help to put Zucco where he belongs. But, he needs to let that go now.

It doesn’t matter. And while part of Dick wails and rebels at that statement, another part rolls its eyes at him. Because it shouldn’t have taken him this long to figure this out.

He doesn’t have to live day to day, surviving on nothing but the thought of impending vengeance anymore. He has other reasons to live. Four reasons. Four perfect little reasons that Dick never should have ran out on.

Dick loves them. He loves them so much and he never wants to lose them. He doesn’t want anything to take them away from him. And he needs to remember not to let anything take him away from them.

Not Zucco. Not even his parents.

And it hurts to think that. It hurts a lot, but it’s important that Dick feels that pain. That he acknowledges it and embraces it. Because he loves his parents. He loves them so much and nothing will ever change that.

But it’s time for Dick to move on. To let go of all his anger and fear that has clung to him since he’s watched them plummet to their deaths. Being sad and angry and miserable isn’t going to bring them back. It just makes him sad and angry and miserable and Dick is so tired of feeling like that.

Especially when he doesn’t have to.

And how can he ever feel awful when he hears Tim chattering about Batman or Stephanie teasing Jason or Jason reading aloud or Cassandra humming to herself?

He has so many reasons to be happy, so Dick is going to stop focusing on all the reasons he has to be unhappy.

Zucco smirks down at him and Dick closes his eyes. Forces himself to block this out because it’s easier when he doesn’t think too much about what’s happening. If he can retreat to his happy place this will be over so much sooner.

Zucco pulls the gun away from his forehead and Dick contemplates making a run for it, but it’s too risky. He doesn’t need a bullet in his back.

There’s a loud thumping sound as something hits the ground and Dick hesitates before opening his eyes.

Dick blinks.

Batman stands over Zucco’s tied up form. The gun is slightly off to the side where it was dropped and Dick pauses for a second before walking over to it and kicking it off into the distance.

“You do realize,” Batman growls, “that by providing Penguin with money, you’ve become an accessory to every crime he’s committed. I hope you enjoy your prison sentence for drug trafficking.”

Zucco snarls, but he doesn’t say a word, glaring at Batman.

“And extortion,” Dick says and Batman turns to look at him. “But the murder charge is what’s really going to hurt you.”

Zucco tenses. His glare snaps over to Dick and Dick resists the urge to flinch. He’s not going to chase after Zucco anymore. He’s not going to dedicate every waking moment to catching this man. He has more important things to do. But that doesn’t mean he has to let this moment pass him by either.

“You shut your mouth,” Zucco growls at him. “I’ll kill you.”

Dick crouches down beside him. “You’ve already tried that and I have the bounty to prove it.” There’s a brief look of confusion on Zucco’s face that slowly fades away into understanding. “You murdered my parents. I will never be able to forget the sight of them falling to the ground and I will never forgive you for it.”

“Grayson,” Zucco whispers so quietly, Dick almost doesn’t hear it. “You can’t prove anything.”

“I heard what you said to Pop and I saw you sneaking out of the restricted area.”

Zucco tries to lunge at him from the ground, but tied up as he is, all he really does is twitch forward. “No one will ever believe you. I’ll admit, when I paid off your social worker to place you in juvie, I expected one of the boys there to end you. Three hundred bucks seemed like more than enough to get any of them to finish the job. I didn’t expect you to escape. It doesn’t matter, though. If you thought having a three hundred dollar bounty was bad, let’s see what you think of having a three thousand dollar one.”

Dick schools his face into something neutral. All this time he thought he’s had some massive price on his head, but he hasn’t. It makes a little more sense why his bounty has never really been an issue before. Dick knows for a fact that there aren’t a lot of pictures of him floating around. There are many pictures of his parents, but very few of him. Anyone who wants to off him, will have to do a lot of leg work just to find out what he looked like five years ago.

Way too much work for such little pay off.

But three thousand dollars, Dick feels his blood run cold, someone will definitely consider the payoff worth it.

Batman steps forward, reaches down, and with one hand hauls Zucco up to eye level, and leans forward to whisper something in his ear. Dick has no idea what he says, but afterwards, Zucco is terrified. He leans away from Batman as much as he can and Dick can see him trembling from where he’s dangling.

Dick smirks, “Did you actually manage to forget he was standing there?”

* * *

The car drives along the road and there’s an almost oppressive silence bearing down on them. Dick doesn’t understand why. After ensuring that Zucco would be picked up by a nearby patrol car, Batman had more or less tossed Dick into the passenger seat of his car.

It’s been weird, though. Dick can tell that there’s something the hero wants to talk to him about, but Dick doesn’t get his hesitation. He’s not sure if he should wait for the conversation to start or prod him into talking.

He thinks about what little he knows about the man. There’s nothing about him to be gleaned from Dick’s first sighting of him. They hadn’t interacted and Dick hadn’t stuck around long enough to observe him.

There second meeting, though, offers more clues. Batman hadn’t spoken until Dick was leaving, until he was on the other side of the room. And yet, he had allowed Dick access to his injury, let Dick poke and prod without a word despite the curiosity he must have been experiencing.

Batman was like an interesting compilation of all his kids: Like Stephanie, he’s unsubtle when something is on his mind; like Cassandra, he probably likes to collect his thoughts before he speaks; Tim never about his problems unless he’s exhausted every resource trying to solve it himself; and Jason is a ticking time bomb, willing to hold everything in until it finally explodes out of him.

If this was Cassandra or Timothy he was trying to help, Dick would wait until they began the conversation; if it was Jason or Stephanie, he would start it for them. He’s not sure which side of the spectrum Batman falls into, but he’s going to have to make a decision.

It would be easier if he knew what was on the man’s mind. It has to be something that Dick knows about and something he knows Dick knows about. Most likely something that happened in the park because Dick can’t think of anything else that he would want to talk to him about. It has to be something personal because Dick doubts would be this awkward about it otherwise.

It clicks.

Dick looks down at his lap, his fingers clutching the hem of his shirt. He gets why Batman wouldn’t want to bring it up, even if he really wants to know. He’s not sure he wants to talk about it. He glances at Batman from the corner of his eyes, notes the tenseness in his shoulders and the unreasonably tight grip he uses to hold the steering wheel.

This is important to him. Dick doesn’t know why, but it is. He bites his lips and shuts his eyes. Batman is a hero. He dedicates himself to protecting not only Gotham, but also the world. It’s a known fact that Batman is an unofficial founding member of the Justice League. He may have very little to do with it, but whenever a crisis occurs, the League usually seeks him out for help.

He does so much for people, but he gets so little back. The least Dick can do is talk to him about this. He opens his eyes again, smoothes out the bottom of his shirt, and takes a deep breath.

“It wasn’t an easy decision,” he begins.

Dick hadn’t known it was possible for Batman to get any tenser.

“At the same time it wasn’t much of a decision.” He needs to do something with his hands, but at the same time, Dick doesn’t want to be fidgeting while they have this conversation. It’s too serious for that. “I would rather die than let Zucco touch me.”

“Then why—”

“But, I would also rather return to my siblings than let Zucco kill me.”

Batman is silent and Dick wants to take a breath to calm himself and collect his thoughts, but he needs to get this out now.

“The second I kneeled beside my parents’ corpses, their cooling blood coating my hands and clothes, I promised myself I would never let Zucco get away with it. I swore I would hunt him down and make him pay.” Dick stops here for a second, has to take a second to stifle the sob that tries to slip out at the memory of kneeling down on blood soaked ground and begging his parents to wake up. “The thought of vengeance kept me going for a long long time. Until it didn’t. Eventually, there came a time when revenge just wasn’t enough of a reason to keep pushing forward.”

“What happened?”

Dick bites his lips hard enough he tastes blood. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t want to think about that first awful time when he had sex with The Man. That’s not a time he’s willing to ever revisit. Not even for the Batman.

“I found another reason to go on. You’ve met her.”

“Cassandra.”

Dick looks at Batman, just a little creeped out. How did he know her name? He wants to ask, but he also wants this conversation to end and it’ll be so much harder to have later if they get off topic now.

“Yeah. I met Cass and it was so much easier to go on. To focus on other things beside my burning need for revenge. And six months later, I met Jay. Two years later I had Tim and Steph followed him by a couple of months. With each kid I hurt a little less.” One of Dick’s hand rises to clutch at his shirt over his heart. “The hole in my heart became less noticeable. It never got any smaller and the pain never decreased, but it still somehow became more manageable. Until there were occasional days when I simply forgot that I was hurting.”

“They helped that much?”

“More than you can imagine. For them, there’s very little I wouldn’t go through. I haven’t forgiven Zucco for taking my parents from me and I never will, but I won’t keep putting Zucco before my kids. He’s already taken my parents from me, I won’t let him take me from my siblings.”

“It’s that easy, is it?” There’s a bitterness to Batman’s voice. A resigned sort of dejection that resonates with Dick. It reminds Dick of how he feels whenever he notices his ungrateful classmates complaining about their parents. As if having someone care enough about them to pack them a lunch, even if it’s not their favourite food, was some terrible fate they had been condemned to.

“No.” Dick states, taking a deep breath to fortify himself. “It’s not that easy. Nothing is ever that easy. It’s hard. There’s a part of me that will always want to make Zucco pay. To hunt him down and punish him for what he did. But I know that I have to let it go. I’ve carried my anger and hate and thirst for vengeance with me for five years now and it’s been draining. I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

Batman makes a soft almost inaudible noise of discontent. He doesn’t understand. Dick can tell in the way one of his fingers is tapping on the steering wheel impatiently.

“Let’s flip the scenario around. Let’s say someone murdered your parents and you’ve hunted down the killer.” Batman reacts to that statement, fingers clenching the steering wheel in what must be a white knuckled grip, and Dick isn’t quite sure what to make of that. “You have two options, you can either confront him or ignore him. If you confront him, you will die; but, if you ignore him, you will lose his trail forever. What would you do?”

“Confront him.” Batman’s response is instantaneous. There’s no hesitation or second guessing, just an automatic response that requires no thinking.

“Okay, but, Batman, how many people, do you think, will die the next time Joker escapes from Arkham after you’ve died?”

The silence is deafening. They’re almost there. Batman almost understands what Dick has been trying to tell him. “It would be easy to die for your parents, but there are people who are relying on you at this very second. And for them, for every single person who believes in you and trusts you, you have to survive. Choosing to ignore their murderer doesn’t mean you love them any less, it doesn’t mean that they’re not important to you. It means that you have other people depending on you that you can’t let down. At the end of the day, your parents are still dead, whether their murderer is caught or not, nothing will change that. The only thing that will change is whether the rest of us can still rely on you to save the day.”

Batman is still silent. But, they’re there. Dick can tell.

“Your parents have been murdered and you’ve hunted down the killer. It’s a trap, though. If you confront him, you will die; but, if you ignore him, you’ll lose his trail forever. What will you do?”

Batman doesn’t answer immediately. He takes his time deliberating his options in his head. “Ignore him.” There’s a sort of underlying grief in his voice that Dick can hear over his monotone words.

“And how many lives will you have saved the next time the Justice League needs your help to stop another alien invasion?”

There’s no response.

Dick reaches over, rests his hand on the arm closest to him, and smiles at Batman. “My kids and I always feel safer sleeping at night knowing that you’re prowling the streets at night.”

Batman nods his head, ever so slightly, and Dick’s smile turns into a blinding grin. Because Batman gets it now. Dick doesn’t know why he needed to know this, but he can see an almost reluctant shift in the man’s demeanour. An involuntary relaxation, as if all the weight on his shoulders is slowly being dragged off.

Dick’s eyes fall onto the road in front of him and he snuggles into his seat.

* * *

Batman parallel parks in front of Dick’s building and Dick turns to look at him. “How do you know where I live?”

Because Dick certainly hadn’t told him. He’d actually told the man to drop him off at an apartment two blocks from here.

Batman is silent, eyes fixed forward, and Dick unbuckles his seatbelt and shifts so that he can properly face him. “I’m not going anywhere until you confirm that you’re not stalking me.”

Batman turns to him and Dick can feel his annoyance.

“You can glare at me all you like, but I’m pretty sure if you told me to drop you off somewhere and instead I parked in front of your house, you’d be pretty creeped out too. I mean it was bad enough that you knew my sister’s name, but knowing where I live is where I draw my line.”

“I had to drop your siblings off earlier.”

Dick’s heart skips a beat. Jason and Tim have only met Batman once, Cassandra has seen him twice, and Stephanie has only ever heard stories. There is no way they have ever encountered Batman before. No time when the superhero would have been dropping them off at home. Dick would know. He always knows where they are because he’s always with them.

Except for tonight. He hasn’t been there for several hours and he told them to leave the apartment if something happened. Which means that something happened and they needed him, but Dick wasn’t there.

Because he was off chasing Zucco.

Dick starts shaking, he can feel tears filling up his eyes, and when he looks over to Batman, the man is leaning away from him ever so slightly.

“What happened?”

Batman doesn’t say anything.

The first sob escapes his throat before Dick can stop it. He can’t stop thinking about what must happened to them. The Man probably came to the apartment and found Dick missing.

He’s ruined everything. They’re homeless now. He’s done this. And now his kids are back upstairs in the apartment with The Man and—wait.

“You sent them back into the apartment! Oh, God!” Dick scrambles for the door, but he’s panicking and shaking and he can’t see through his tears enough to get out of the car. “Are they okay?” he sobs at Batman. “Were they okay when you left them?”

“They’re fine.” There’s an awkwardness to Batman’s words, an air about him that implies how uncomfortable he is at the moment.

“They’re not!” Dick snaps back. “They wouldn’t have left the apartment unless something was wrong!” Dick knows that he’s sending Batman mixed signals, but it’s hard to be rational when he knows that something happened to his siblings. Something happened and he wasn’t there for them.

“They were worried about you. I found the four of them walking to Robinson Park because they thought you were in trouble.”

Dick stops. Let’s the words sink in before almost crumbling in his seat.

They were fine. They hadn’t left because of some emergency. Dick hadn’t been in an okay place when he left earlier and they’d known that. They were just checking up on him. Everything was okay. Everything is okay.

“You walked them to the apartment, right? I’m not going to go inside and find them dead in the stairwell?”

He glares at Batman. The question sounds ridiculous, but in this area of Gotham, it’s still a legitimate concern.

Batman nods his head and Dick lets out a soft sigh of relief.

And then he punches Batman.

“Next time lead with that part!” Dick swipes at the tears on his face, and holds back a different set of sobs that want out. “Don’t just tell someone you picked up their kids without informing them that said kids are okay!”

Batman is watching him, but there’s a wariness to him. Almost as if he thinks Dick is a ticking time bomb.

The thought makes Dick smile a little wider than it should.

“This is the third time you’ve saved me,” he says. Dick can’t prove it, but he has a feeling that if Batman hadn’t been there that night he found Cassandra, Dick never would have stumbled across her. And he knows, without a doubt, if not for Cassandra, Dick never would have survived long enough to meet Jason.

Batman is still silent, but Dick can feel him wracking his brain trying to remember the other occasion he encountered Dick.

He won’t remember. Dick is pretty sure he was far too busy fighting ninja to notice Dick and Cassandra watching him from the shadows. But, there’s something satisfying about watching him try to remember him. To know that in this moment Batman cares enough about him to try and remember him.

It’s a bit startling, but Dick realizes he wants Batman to remember him. To never forget him or this moment they’re sharing.

Dick doesn’t really know Batman, doesn’t know the man’s name or even what his face looks like. But, he likes him. He’s the first adult Dick’s fully trusted in a very long time.

“Can’t remember?” he teases. Batman’s lips twitch. And even though his facial expression remains neutral, Dick knows the truth. “Don’t pout, Batman. You’re a little too old for that.”

Batman lips give another minute twitch and Dick throws his head back and laughs.

The man is pouting. It doesn’t matter how blank he keeps his face, Dick knows that he’s pouting.

“It’s okay if you can’t remember the first time you saved me. You were pretty busy at the time. But if you forget this time, I’ll be pissed. So, to make sure you don’t forget, I’m going to give you something.”

“You don’t have to give me anything.”

“Obviously.” Dick rolls his eyes at the man. “Now close your eyes.”

Dick can’t see if his eyes are open or closed because of the white lenses in his cowl, but he’s positive the man’s eyes are still open. “Now, cover your eyes with your palms, since closing your eyes is too complicated for you.”

“My eyes are closed.”

“Then covering them shouldn’t be a problem.”

There’s a temporary stalemate when Batman doesn’t do what Dick asks. But, Dick is the one with four younger siblings.

“I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves, yes, on everybody’s nerves! I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves! And this is how it goes! I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves, yes, on everybody’s nerves!”

He doesn’t have to go for any longer because Batman grudgingly raises his hands to his eyes and covers them.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he laughs.

He gets another secret pout from Batman and Dick has to struggle to get his laughter under control. When he does, he reaches into his pockets and rustles around in them, letting his key jangle as he pulls them out.

He takes a deep breath, feeling his heart beat faster, and a small blush coming to his cheeks. “This for you, Batman.” He darts forward quickly, before the hero can uncover his eyes, and kisses him.

Batman’s hands fall away from his eyes, “What—”

“That was my first kiss,” he tells him, “and if you forget I gave it to you, I’ll be very hurt.” He’s not lying, which feels like the best part of this situation. The Man has never kissed Dick. Dick has no idea why, he can only assume that The Man has never felt the need, but Dick is so glad he hasn’t. Because now Dick’s decided who gets his first kiss and he’s given it to Batman.

And somehow, Dick knows Batman won’t forget.

“You may have saved me three times, but next time I’ll be doing the saving.”

Batman snorts and Dick can see the smirk that slips onto his lips.

“You laugh now, but when I save your butt, you’ll owe me a kiss.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I don’t think it’s good kissing etiquette to say that after you kiss someone.”

Batman shakes his head slightly. “What do you know about kissing etiquette?”

“Enough to know that you’re being very rude.” Dick smiles at Batman, soaking in another moment of happiness. “Well, I should probably get going now,” he murmurs.

Batman nods his head, but there’s something about him that doesn’t sit right with Dick. It feels like he’s pulling away, distancing himself from this moment, and Dick is not okay with that. He doesn’t want them parting a sad note.

“Can I ask you something before I go?” Batman nods his head and Dick tries to contain a grin. “You said you dropped my kids off, but how did you all fit in this car? There are only two seats.”

Batman tenses, “They shared the passenger seat.”

Dick grins. “And by ‘they’, you mean Cassandra and Jason because Stephanie decided to sit in your lap and Tim came up with a totally bogus reason for you to let them.”

“Get out of my car.”

It takes a very long time for Dick to stop laughing.

(They’re okay. Each of them is awake and waiting for him in the living room. Dick sinks into the sound of their chatter and gorges himself on the knowledge of their wellbeing. He’s learned a lot of things today and he won’t ever forget a single one. He has his kids, which means, he has everything he needs. And more importantly, he was right. Tim and Stephanie definitely sat in Batman’s lap on the drive home.)

**Author's Note:**

> The fact that this is all in Dick's POV makes me a little sad because it means that there are certain things that can never be explained. For example, after their talk in the last scene, Bruce goes home and finally closes the case on his parents' murder.
> 
> On another note, my head canon dictates that it is one percent plausible for Dick to encounter every single one of his kids in this scenario. The characters that it was hardest to fit in was Tim because he's a rich boy who really doesn't belong, but I wanted him there so I made him fit. I was going to provide a lovely little rant of headcanon and how all of this is totally possible, but I have editing to do...
> 
> So, until next time!


End file.
